Marisa's Delightful Gensokyo Tour
by X to the Zoltan
Summary: On an eventful day off from her research, Marisa rediscovers how strange Gensokyo is to outsiders - and how strange she is. A side-story to Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense.
1. Alice and Akyuu

**Marisa's Delightful Gensokyo Tour  
** A Touhou Project fanfiction in 7 Parts

* * *

 _ **Author's Note** \- This is set in the same Gensokyo as Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense and Alice's Daring Alpine Infiltration. If you don't remember those stories too well, but can nod along with strange extra-canonical elements like an alluded-to-but-never-yet-featured new village, "the Master Spark" being a primal force of the universe, and an attempt to characterize those three random village girls who come to watch matches in Hopeless Masquerade, you'll be fine! There will be a few original characters in addition to them, so fair warning if that's a turn-off._

 _ **Content Notice -** Since we're following Mari, there's more coarse language and some suggestive themes (nothing explicit) this time around. The last two chapters have references to loss-of-self and abuse - I haven't gone full grimdark, but I don't want to blindside anyone.  
_

* * *

In the woods there stood a cottage, charming on the outside but stuffed wall-to-wall with dusty debris and dreadful magic. Beneath was a secret cave carved by years of training, with regions Spartan and luxurious to match the whims of its digger. And in that cave, a fearsomely powerful magical reactor rested on the rocky floor and a short, wiry witch in an oversized nightshirt sat meditating over it, letting her mind mingle with its currents and diligently keeping it from exploding.

Morning meditation had once been the hardest part of Marisa Kirisame's training, but today she felt great, even as she started to get cold and wet and achy in odd places. After a moment to make sure the mini-hakkero had wound down safely, she stood and stretched expansively, enjoying the feeling of her body struggling against itself. These last few days of research had been grand.

Marisa gestured and made a firm demand of the universe. _Wind!_ Sure enough, a little dust devil kicked up around her knees and she did a quick dance with it, laughing. It was a pitiable bit of magic, but a nice return on her efforts after years of less. Fire and lightning had been just as hard once. Now she was broadening her repertoire, thanks in part to Alice's help.

Leaving the mini-hakkero for Alice to study had been a sort of test. What would she be able to learn? Would she try to harness it for her own purposes? Could she be trusted with its awesome power? If worst came to worst, Marisa could still have conjured it to her hand at a moment's notice. But even after their first meeting, she knew she wouldn't have to.

It turned out that Alice couldn't stand to keep it from her. Marisa had just taken those days to focus on mycology and potions, but she was touched (and embarrassed) by her new friend's concern. Early one morning, unannounced, Alice had arrived at her door and presented it in a box lined with research notes, then bustled off to some negotiation with the village. And what notes they were! Like all of Rinnosuke's creations, the mini-hakkero was far more complex and artful than even _he_ knew, and its ability to channel the Master Spark had only been the start. Alice's work suggested that the eight trigrams weren't just a decorative flourish, but an indication of its features.

 _Judging from the wear on the knots of spellwork beneath each, it seems that you use the Heaven, Fire and Thunder trigrams most heavily. (That's fitting for you, I think.) If this combination directs the hakkero to tap into the Master Spark, it might be possible to reach other sources of power by activating different combinations of trigrams. I was not courageous enough to attempt using it myself, but when I held it while working other spells, I could see the water trigram starting to prime. The spellwork itself seems reminiscent of…_

Marisa knew for certain that she liked Alice when, after reading through the notes, she'd settled on cheerfully impressed instead of frustrated or envious. Maybe she could accept an upstart teaching her a little about her metaphorical right hand because she'd already been able to help Alice with her own research. Or maybe she was just _maturing_.

Perish the thought!

* * *

For all that she'd enjoyed the cold, the Mari-cave's lodge was blessedly cozy as she prepared for her day. A burst from the hakkero made her bathwater just _this_ side of scalding, though it was tepid by the time she'd thumbed through a volume of _Thaumaturgy Quarterly_ in it. Another burst heated an experimental ham and mushroom casserole that was repulsive but at least filled her up. Marisa sang snatches of half-remembered songs as she dressed for the day and stuffed her apron pockets with potions, snacks, tools and a few secret weapons, largely but not exclusively mushroom-based.

Even though this was a day off from research, it would still be busy. First, she'd be getting together with Alice to work on their sinister living doll project and maybe make a joint spellcard together. (She was hoping to contrast their styles, something like _Friendship Sign – Cosmos of Chaos._ ) In the evening, they'd be meeting up with a newcomer named Manar, one of the humans who'd come through with the new village, and showing her around Gensokyo. Marisa thought that this one _might_ have potential as an incident resolver, but since they didn't recruit, all they could do was show her which way was up and hope she jumped the right way when the moon turned to green cheese or whatever.

 _A smart, gentle youkai and a brilliant, sexy human,_ Marisa mused, looking herself over in the mirror and running a hand along the brim of her hat. _Could you ask for a better pair of Gensokyo tour guides?_ Looking forward to their day-long teamup, she glanced over to the doll she'd adopted, slumped against the wall on her bedside table. These days, it wore a doll-sized version of Alice's favorite outfit and stood by to relay any messages between them – once Shanghai Orange, it was now Shanghai Alice. As she finished dressing, it suddenly stood up and waved its arms, signaling that a call was coming through.

"What a coincidence!" Marisa said, sitting on her bed and grabbing the doll up. "I was just thinkin' about you!"

The doll shuddered as its distant master took control, then spoke. "Hello, Marisa." It didn't have Alice's voice, but flawlessly took on her inflections. That had been eerie the first time they'd talked this way, but now she thought it made the doll weirdly cute – a teeny robot Alice. "Er, how are you?"

"Doing great! But you'll find out all about that in just a bit, yeah?"

The expression on Shanghai's face was familiar; a little contrite, but mostly just tired. The witch knew what it meant even before her friend said, "As it turns out, I, ah, won't be."

"Come on, really?" Marisa whined. "This is the third time in a row!"

"Yes, really. I don't think I can make it out today."

"Man! What could be so engrossing?" Marisa's tone was ambiguous even to herself, half cheerful, half frustrated. "Alphabetizing the old sock drawer? Halfway through a bodice-ripper you just can't put down? Or, ooh, do you need help burying a body? I'd _totally_ help you with that."

"No, no. What? If I were to murder someone, you'd never even find out. I'm more circumspect than…" The trace of lightness in her voice faded and Marisa sighed. They sometimes had moments where it felt like they could get a good banter going, but Alice always dropped them. "No, I'm sorry. That might be the best way to put it, what you said. I'm… engrossed right now."

"All I'm saying is, you'd better have a doll-based superlaser or something next time we talk."

The doll's voice fluttered oddly. "Or something."

"What?"

"Nothing. I don't know." Marble eyes flicked up and down. Her friend was having a hard time even making eye contact with the doll on her end. "I just… something is coming up, an engagement of sorts. I have to make a decision about it, and it's been taking a lot of my energy."

"Alice, what are you talking about? Is this some kind of spooky witching-hour youkai thing or something?" A hint of concern pushed through Marisa's annoyance. "What's the _deal_ with you lately?"

"Just what makes you think I have to _explain-?"_ Alice broke off with a sharp sigh and continued more calmly. "You don't have to worry about it. It's fine. Th-thank you. If, if you still want to test the mounting for the hakkero doll, I should be able to…"

"Look, let's just not make plans right now," Marisa said wearily. "Just take care of your thing, whatever it is. I guess I'll see you whenever."

Alice was silent for a long moment and the doll's expression flattened out in an irritatingly familiar way. "Once again, I'm sorry I can't make it today. I wish you luck with the newcomer." The doll went limp.

Marisa stood holding it for a few seconds, staring into space. _Yeah, I probably screwed that up._ Also, the conversation stung a little because Alice was on the short-list of people she'd tell if she ever murdered someone. She thought fleetingly of her friend's wistful tone in the Prismrivers' guest-room, describing the carefree person she might someday be. _But for now she's the old her, or the real her, with all that baggage… but come to think of it,_ what _baggage?_ She'd had half a mind to ask, but Alice had canceled all of their get-togethers since then.

Marisa let the tension out in a sigh and tossed the doll onto her bed. _She knows what she's doing, I guess._

* * *

Autumn grew heavier and darker as the few remaining leaves shriveled in the chill air. Light, indecisive rain came and went, carried by cold wind whispering through bare branches. It should have been gloomy, but for some reason Marisa always found overcast days like this energizing.

Turning a wide loop above her house, she considered opening her Anything Store for the morning, but business was always lousy this time of year. Besides, this was a day off! She hopped to her feet on the broom and drove her weight down, dragging its bristles through the treetops as she finished her loop. _I'll just go bug someone. Who'd be up for shenanigans?_

She'd already angled for the Hakurei Shrine, but Reimu was still sore over that whole business with the rakshasa freebooter, who, in Marisa's defense, had given absolutely _no_ indication that he'd seek vengeance when she gave her name as "Hakurei Reimu." _Aheh. Maybe give her a little longer._

The new village might've been fun, but it'd be awkward if she bumped into Manar early. Also, the sheriff there had some funny ideas about the ethics of thievery, brawling, drunkenness, dark magic, public displays of affection and basically everything Marisa was famous for, which made visiting _more_ fun most days, but maybe she wasn't up for that just today. So Thunderdome was out.

She briefly considered finding some youkai to spar with, but she was losing interest in beating up on the ones she was likely to find. It was half boredom and half a growing feeling that, however eager they were to face her, she was punching down and being a scumbag by obliging them. _Maybe I'll work on some milder spells, like the Reverie. Hmm, hehe, maybe a Master Spark-like Flashlight?_

By now, Marisa was at the edge of the Human Village's fields (no alternate name had stuck.) Harvest time in the village was a militarized affair, bound by traditions left over from when it was an isolated fortress against legions of man-eaters. (It still was, sort of, but things had definitely changed.) Most of the village was organized into work teams, usually eight, and sent out in shifts under the watchful gaze of a corps of "sentinels" – low-rent, self-important youkai busters blundering around in armor and working magic with ritual tantos.

Honestly, the sentinels being out in force was such a pain that Marisa almost turned back. They were small fries, but incredibly annoying. As she passed over a fallow outlying field, though, a familiar glint in the corner of her eye brought her up short. _Strings?_

Below, a huge mechanical ladybug, perhaps a meter and a half long, was trundling in circles, guided by sorcerous strings like Alice's. It bucked and shuddered, swinging a brightly-painted shell around and waving its goofy foil antennae at everything. Scythe-like claws curled at its sides, but thankfully hadn't come into play yet. Despite its awkwardness and precious design, the machine had a strange dignity to it. "I have a job," its buggy eyes said. "And I'm going to do it."

A trio of village girls were gathered around the other end of its strings, enthusiastically squabbling over the rings that anchored them, what they should have the bug do, and life in general. Marisa knew Momo, Mizuno and Nouko vaguely; they turned up for every planned danmaku match near the village to cheer on whoever caught their passing fancy, or just to cheer. Reimu had jokingly called them the 'danmaku groupies' until Marisa put her foot down. When you've had _actual_ danmaku groupies, using the term for a bunch of kids was just creepy.

Nearby was a picnic table set with a neatly packed spread of food (Marisa immediately laid plans to mooch some), a long, low table strewn with books and loose paper, and an outdoor chaise lounge bearing a sleeping Hieda no Akyuu, bundled up heavily in colorful winter wear. This small, frail girl was the ninth incarnation of the Child of Maire, a spirit tasked with maintaining the Chronicle of Gensokyo. She used the knowledge gathered over those lifetimes to help guide the village, but bearing its weight made each life a little shorter.

Marisa landed at a respectful distance and approached quietly; the girls were so absorbed in their struggle that only Nouko noticed her and gave her a nod.

"It's not just your fingers," Momo said, gritting her teeth. The bug danced in place and plunged one of its claws into the ground. She crooked her fingers and tugged, but only managed to make its rear legs pop into the air and waggle stupidly. "You have to tell it what to do in your head, too. I don't think she gets how hard this is for humans."

"Or for dingbats like you," Mizouno suggested, enjoying the show.

"Yeah, genius? You wanna try?"

"I'd, ah, I'd like to…" Nouko started.

"Yes, I would _love_ to try, Momo. Give it here."

Under Mizouno's masterful command, the bug made a horrible grinding sound and flipped onto its back, flailing its legs in the air. Nouko gave a little scream as the scythes whipped out and shoveled air into its whirling mouthparts.

"I'm impressed!" Momo said.

Mizouno slapped her forehead, which somehow instructed the bug to splay its legs and belch smoke. "Oh, go stuff a radish up your – "

"No, I'm serious." Momo took her shoulder with a big smile. "I didn't know the stupid thing was that agile!"

"Hey, but stop!" Nouko cried. "You're breaking it."

Marisa crossed to Akyuu's chaise and crouched next to her, smiling. _Ah, young friendship_.The spike of warmth gave her an impulse to scream " _TENGU_ ," grab Akyuu by her kimono and fly away. But no, it wouldn't do to give anyone a heart attack. It would be _hilarious,_ but it wouldn't do. After a brief struggle with her id, Marisa finally constrained herself to softly calling, "Hey, Akyuu?"

"Sxzn-hm?" The chronicler blinked and looked around fuzzily. "Oh. Marisa! Good to see you. Did Alice send you?"

"What? No."

"She was going to come early this morning to help us test this, ah…" Akyuu waved a hand at the suffering ladybug. Nouko had finally gotten a turn at the rings, but was only able to make it backstroke along the ground with its claws. "Doll of hers."

"What is it, even?"

"Prototype harvester."

 _CLUNK._ The bug righted itself with the help of a push from Mizunou. She fled before the claws could come out again.

"Don't you already have combines?" Marisa asked, flummoxed. "And, like, wouldn't just swinging a sickle make more sense than messing with that little guy?"

"Honestly, yes," Akyuu admitted with a quick smile, then turned to the ongoing disaster and raised her voice. "Oh, just stop torturing the poor thing, girls! We'll try again when we can get the dollmaker. Why don't you just enjoy the lunch we set out and then get back to your teams?"

"Aw, but-!" Nouko started.

"Rings," Akyuu said firmly, holding out a little hand.

Grumbling good-naturedly, the girls gave up their minion and retreated to the picnic table, where they gathered in a tight cluster around the food and set about destroying it. They acknowledged Marisa, but only stole glances at her from a distance, tittering and elbowing and "no, you!"ing. _Didn't Nouko say she wanted to get my autograph?_ Marisa wondered. _But now they're acting so nervous! Like they get around the youkai who come…_

"We're trying to get an alternative to the kappa's wares," Akyuu explained. "Something that would let us keep the efficiency of their combines with less risk of exploding."

"But exploding is half the fun!" Marisa protested.

Akyuu gave her a dubious look. "This is just a prototype. They're not as big as the kappatronic combines, but with practice each farmer will hopefully be able to guide three or four, along with a separate machine to serve as a hopper."

"Sounds tricky."

"The alternative is making them much larger, like Alice's first design. It just made me uneasy when she asked me to imagine phalanxes of them lumbering across the landscape and laughed." Akyuu clutched the air theatrically, apparently mimicking the magician. "So I offered her half again her asking price to miniaturize her design."

Marisa nodded sagely. Letting a magician youkai to build anything that looked like an Army of Doom was one of the classic blunders. Best to avoid temptation. "And, like, why's it a ladybug?"

"I expect she tried to build something that wasn't cute and broke into hives," Akyuu said dryly. "Maybe her very nature as a youkai rebelled."

Marisa wasn't sure if that was a joke, but chuckled anyway. "Sure, but where's the creepy part? Her dolls are always a little creepy, too."

"Take a look at its mouth. Classic Margatroid."

"Oh, yeah. A bright little cuddlebug with whirling death blades? Classic."

Akyuu giggled behind her sleeve. "I hate to ask this, since it's not your specialty, but could you check to make sure that they didn't damage the prototype?"

Marisa hesitated.

"I'll understand if you can't. After all, Alice's handiwork is highly subtle, and…"

Fully aware that she'd been played like a fiddle, Marisa marched over to the ladybug and knelt, resting one hand on it and calling the mini-hakkero to the other. The machine's smooth wooden shell was lacquered to protect it from the elements, but that didn't interfere as she slipped into a light trance and reached out for its strings. The layout was much simpler than she was used to seeing, more a series of levers than the strings of a proper marionette. "Let's see… if he's anything like Alice's normal dolls, you can get him to tell you if he's damaged."

The hakkero spun up and she pressed it to her chest, focusing inward. Death rays and star barrages were one thing, but she needed to pull her power in close for fine manipulation. Odd that she had to do it like this when Alice preferred to push hers out through her fingertips and Patchouli could just let it settle in her belly. It was _also_ odd to think that, even a year ago, this kind of minute focus would have left her reeling and sick. It didn't feel like it day-to-day, but her skills were steadily improving.

Marisa found the string she was looking for almost instantly. She gave it a sharp pull and only _then_ worried that she might have just told the harvester to slash her. Its shell quivered for a horrible instant, then it reported, "I'm not hurt, auntie," in the voice of a Shanghai doll.

" _What the what?_ " Marisa shrieked, vaulting four feet into the air and sticking there. The girls whirled, perhaps hoping the doll had gone berserk and they'd witness a battle for the ages, then subsided, laughing. "Did you hear that, Akyuu? That was creepy as _all hell!_ "

"But it called you auntie," Akyuu replied. "So it's cute, too!"

"Point," Marisa conceded, but she still felt off-kilter. She slowly pulled her heart out of her chest and – no, no, she was just lowering the hakkero away from her body. It seemed to resist as she forced it to spin down. She squeezed her eyes shut and tasted the air, getting used to the fact that the magic wasn't part of her. The day rushed in around her; the cold breeze, the smell of the earth, the distant calls of workers, the hushed conversation of Akyuu's helpers nearby…

"…kind of glad she didn't come? She spooks me," Nouko was saying.

"Oh, yeah. And it's even worse now that she tries to be nice," Momo added. "The way she pastes on that smile. And those _teeth_."

"Yeah, but come on," Mizouno said. "It's not like _your_ teeth are all that great."

Marisa couldn't help but snicker, returning to herself in a flash of disdain. _Candy-asses. If they think_ Alice _is_ _scary, I wonder how they'd handle a vampire. Or even Wriggle._ She drifted back towards Akyuu, jerking a thumb over her shoulder as she landed. "So are we going to trust the devil bug or do I have to start taking him apart?"

"We can trust it for now, yes. Thank you for your help, Marisa." Akyuu pressed some coins into her hand. "Here. Buy yourself something nice."

Marisa was affronted for a split second, but then she realized just how _much_ Akyuu had passed her and her irritation collapsed into embarrassment. She backed up with an awkward nod, then turned and hopped onto her broom.

"Oh, wait. Marisa!"

"Yeah?" Marisa spun in place and set the broom drifting back with a flick of her boot.

"Your friend Riko's team is just starting their midday break," Akyuu said, smiling slyly. "And I'll bet she's been missing you lately."

Despite herself, Marisa perked up. "You think so?"

"You're definitely on her mind. The kappa came by this morning to replace a combine that exploded, and that nice young lady you're seeing – ah, Nitori? – was with them. I think they really hit it off."

Marisa's jaw dropped. "How did _you_ know about _that?_ "

"Oh, I interviewed Nitori for the chronicle," Akyuu said cheerfully. "We met back when I was doing my writeup on the kappas, not long after the new village came. Don't worry, dear. I won't let anything _too_ juicy slip."

Marisa met her gaze, unnerved. She had no idea if she was looking at a child or an old woman, nor just what bit of gossip she was promising to keep under her ribbon. Was it just the inherent juiciness of a doomed romance between a human and a youkai? Nitori wouldn't have told a kid like her anything compromising, right? Oh, god, she probably had. Once you got through her shyness, Nitori was an enormous blabbermouth. The chronicler probably knew every salacious detail.

Akyuu gave her an angelic smile. "Don't worry about that for now. Riko's with Team 7 this season, so you can find her in the South Fields."

"Um," Marisa said. "Thanks."

"Of course! Just doing my job. Speaking of which, I should really get back to this." Akyuu rolled over on her chaise and took up a brush. Her search for a blank page revealed a few sketches, including a fearsomely smiling Yuka and a distinctly uncomfortable Alice. (The plan had probably been to replace that one today.) Once she was situated, Akyuu glanced back over her shoulder. "Oh, and sometime soon I would like to interview you again, if you can make the time. I don't think I've seen a human quite like you, in any of my lives."

Marisa should have felt proud, but there was something weird about the way Akyuu said it. "Sure. Drop me a line whenever."

"Enjoy your visit to the village, and if anyone hassles you, you let me know."

Marisa nodded, but the chronicler was already lost in the soft rasp of her brush.

Sometimes, it seemed like being the Child of Maire would be a sweet deal – a quiet life defined by constant research and meeting new people, always working on a grand project that would last for generations. But then, that quiet life would get shorter and shorter each time. A twinge of melancholy hit Marisa as she watched Akyuu work. _I guess she doesn't have a lot of time to get this edition done._

Right! None of that! Marisa took flight.


	2. Riko and Yuka

Riko had made her first visit to the Anything Store early in the summer, looking for some minor curses to liven up a prank war. She'd decided to stay a little longer when, instead of haggling, Marisa had impulsively asked for a kiss. "Kisses for curses" wasn't a viable business model (Riko would run out of targets _very_ quickly), so they'd worked out a breezy, playful relationship that didn't usually involve too many curses. Neither had had much time to get together since then, but occasionally Marisa would spirit her away from the village for little vacations.

As promised, Marisa found her at the edge of a gaggle of farmers sitting along a terrace in the south field. Team 7 didn't exactly look cheerful as they tucked into box lunches and relaxed under the sun, but they still made a pleasant picture. They were at peace with who they were and where they were going: back into the fields, day after day, year after year. It had all seemed unbearably dismal to Marisa when she was a wee witchling, but now she was coming to understand, a bit. While there were still parts of their outlook she hated, she could see power in the rhythm of their lives. And whatever she achieved, Marisa had to respect people who worked for living.

Riko fit the mold pretty well, despite her interest in the world beyond. She was a sturdy young woman with a round, friendly face, a round, powerful body, and a two centimeter height advantage she never let Marisa forget. She always wore brightly-colored kosode with flower prints, even on days spent in the fields getting caked with mud; today it was sky-blue, printed with lilies and only moderately caked. Its left sleeve hung empty a few centimeters down her forearm, the mark of a snake youkai bite in her youth.

Riko lit up as Marisa coasted in, turning away from her teammates. "You!" she called, making them jump. "Hey, Shortypants! I just met your kappa!"

Marisa grinned through her wince. It was always awkward when girlfriends met.

"Oh, don't worry. We got along just great!"

"Great enough for a thr…?" Marisa started, then realized that they were in a crowd that might not appreciate lewd jokes, at least not from _her_. While the farmers had all gone back to amiably chatting, she noticed that the group's edge had retreated a bit. Team 7's two sentinels were side-eyeing her, but more out of interest than suspicion, it looked like.

Riko snorted and punched her arm, knocking her drifting backwards. "You greedy little brat!"

Giggling, Marisa cast a glance around and then leaned close. "Hey, you wanna, you wanna get out of here for a bit?"

"Greedy. Brat." Riko offered her hand and gave a gleeful yelp as Marisa easily hefted her up onto the broom. The maneuver was a smooth blend of technique, flight and surprising upper body strength, mixed for just such an occasion.

"Where to?" Marisa asked, kicking off. The villagers below showed the full rainbow of Marisa-reactions as they dwindled in the sky, from amusement to indifference to mistrust to, in one case, smoldering anger. She didn't spare them a single thought.

"Can't go too far." Riko slouched forward, dangling her arms over Marisa's shoulders. "I've got a looooong day ahead of me."

"Yeah, how's the harvest coming?"

"Uuugh, don't ask me about the harvest."

Marisa closed her eyes and smirked. _3, 2…_

"We should be done by now, but the late spring screwed everything up and the kids are getting pissy and dragging their feet. All that new Kappatronic crap the village council bought to make things easier broke down, and did you know the little jerks don't take refunds? Oh, _and_ we're undermanned dealing with two of the storehouses getting infested with rats. Two! It's not like we're gonna starve this winter, but it's just such a pain."

"That's honest labor for you," Marisa said lightly. She slewed her broom sideways and they skidded up to a towering tree just beyond the village's eastern edge. Here they could recline in its springy lower branches and look out over the terraced fields and distant rooftops, a prime spot to hang out and maybe canoodle a bit if they didn't have time for a proper date. After holding out a hand to help Riko over, Marisa hopped onto the tangle of branches herself and summoned the broom to her side with a click of her tongue. "I do extermination, you know!" she added, nestling against Riko's muscular arm. "It'd just be my usual rate."

"There anything you don't do? Anyway, they're trying these weird snake charms from that new shrine on the mountain, but I'll let everyone know you offered." Riko suddenly laughed. "And I missed a joke."

"Huh?"

"Oh, something about your usual rate and everyone in the village kissing you."

"Ha! Well, I'm off to a pretty good start!"

Riko playfully swatted her. Marisa swatted back. After a moment of gauging the other's expressions, they launched into a rapid-fire slapfight that quickly progressed into kissing and nuzzling and caressing. Marisa had just kissed her way down Riko's neck and nosed the collar of her kosode aside when, shaking with laughter, Riko finally grabbed her face and gave her a healthy push back. Marisa almost pitched from the branch, but recovered with a burst of flight to flop back against her arm.

"Honestly," Riko said, shrugging Marisa's head away and straightening her kosode. "Don't you know you're supposed to tenderly romance me, first? Besides, wait, sorry, before we get into that, there was something I wanted to talk to you about first. It's… kind of important."

"Oh, no," Marisa cried. "I got you pregnant, didn't I!?"

Riko snorted, then quickly smoothed her face. "Hey, I'm trying to be serious, here."

"I'll never take resp-!" Marisa paused in mid-jump, hovering a few centimeters off of the branch, then slowly settled back down. "Uh, okay. What's on your mind?"

"Well, you know," Riko said, losing steam. She stared down at her restlessly kicking feet and kneaded her empty sleeve. "I don't like talking about stuff like this, but neither of us are getting younger. I don't know what you've got planned, but I'm gonna have to settle down sooner or later. That's just how it is here, right? And what you and me have is great, but it's not _that._ "

"Ah," Marisa said. "Yeah."

"Also, did you see the way the others were watching us? People are getting leery of me for running off with you. They think you're basically a youkai already. Maybe most of 'em are fine, but the ones who hate you _really_ do."

"Yeah, I saw," Marisa said carelessly. "And maybe they're right. But, I mean, screw 'em."

"You can say that because you live out here in the woods," Riko pointed out apologetically. "You don't have to make your life with them. Us."

Marisa didn't have a reply. She wanted to say something snappy, but the serious turn had knocked her off-balance.

"This is just so I don't surprise you later." Riko gave her an uncharacteristically somber look, then turned away from the village, gazing out over the trees. "Well, there went the mood. But I felt like if I brought all this up _after_ whatever we got up to, that it'd be like using you, or something. I don't know."

"It's fine," Marisa said. She'd honestly been expecting something like this. _Imagine being pinned to the village…_

"And it's so sick, because you're still… you," Riko continued. "You're still Marisa. Like, even if you _were_ a youkai. Everyone's fine with the kappa and that cute little birdy that sells the grilled eel. So what makes _you_ a spooky monster?"

"It's 'cause I used to be one of you," Marisa said with a shrug. She'd known what she was getting into. It was honestly a little embarrassing to see someone upset over it. "For the ones that care, it makes me an insult to all of you."

"That's stupid. Maybe you're right. Just… screw us."

Marisa blew a raspberry and flipped the village off, earning a tentative smile.

"Anyway, I spent all that time whining. How're things going for you?" Riko looped an arm around her shoulders and drew her back in. "Seems like you get handsy like that when something's bothering you. Got any deep, dark issues to drop on me?"

"Oh, I wasn't looking to stop at handsy!" Marisa took a moment to test the water, snuggling close and waggling her fingers hopefully in the air, but a quick glance made her subside. If Riko wasn't in the mood, she wasn't in the mood. "Eh, just some stuff with a friend. It'll all work out."

"You're worried, aren't you? I can see it around your eyes."

"I dunno. Maybe a bit."

"It's not the same friend you were worried about last time, is it?"

"Guess it is." _Agh, there she is again. She gonna cast a shadow over my whole day?_

"Mm," Riko said. "I can't stand it when you fret. It doesn't suit you."

Marisa smiled and spread her hands.

"I don't have to be back for a little while. Why don't we go for a walk?" Riko suggested. Without waiting for a reply, she scooted off the branch and started a long, gentle drift towards the forest floor.

"Doesn't _suit_ me?" Marisa asked the air in her wake, then hopped down after.

Despite the future fluttering around their heads like an annoying moth, they had a nice walk. They teased and poked and chatted the same as always, and shared some of Marisa's experimental candied mushrooms, which turned out to be much better projectiles than confections. In the end, Marisa escorted Riko back to the South Fields, gave her a kiss goodbye, and flew away smiling. Even if this turned out to be their last date, they'd been good to each other and they'd both be fine.

* * *

On her way out, Marisa discovered that she'd picked up a tail. Team 3's sentinels had ditched their charges as she passed overhead and started pacing her at a distance that might've been discreet if they weren't in the open sky. This happened sometimes, even when she wasn't up to anything; maybe they were just bored of glowering at the horizon? She decided to ignore them, but when they followed her out over the Forest of Magic, she finally got annoyed enough to turn around.

They drew up on either side of her and took wary stances, not quite reaching for their weapons. The one on the right was named Ako, youngest daughter of one of the few noble families in the village. They'd learned to fly in the same class, though Ako had been much better until Marisa enchanted her first broom. The one on the left was MacDougal, the son of an outsider and the village blacksmith. He'd been her first kiss, ages ago, before either of them really knew what the big deal was. Both sentinels had known her for most of their lives, but now they were staring like they'd never seen her before. If they hadn't seen the witch in her back then, maybe they really hadn't.

Marisa stood up on her broom, arms loose at her sides, and tilted her head back so she could look down on them. "Yes?"

The sentinels looked at each other awkwardly. Possibly, they were realizing that the two of them had tailed her without the ten or so extra they'd need to actually _do_ anything about her. It would've been hilarious if she were in a better mood.

"Sorry to bother you, Ms. Kirisame," MacDougal finally said, and they retreated.

Marisa watched them go, frustration draining away. She hadn't talked to either in years, and couldn't bring herself to care too much what they thought. Maybe she should be flattered that they were so nervous? The idea of tattling on them to Akyuu crossed her mind and she couldn't help but chortle. This really wasn't a big deal at all.

All the same, she _really_ wanted to fight someone now.

* * *

Marisa hovered over the Genbu River and pondered whether violence really was the answer. Part of her just wanted to go up to the ravine and pester Nitori, but the she'd be busy with that new dam project. Also, she wasn't feeling especially lovey-dovey at the moment. Instead, she cast out a wide-angle detection spell, seeking the aura of anyone who could stand up to her. In Gensokyo, picking a fight could be as simple as flying in the right direction.

Just half a kilometer downriver, a vortex of malevolent power swirled around a crackling gold-and-blue heart, the guardian and treasure in one. Marisa was drawn in like a moth to a flame. At its center, a seemingly ordinary woman lay on her belly before a little mound of Earth, resting her face on her cupped hands and watching it intently. She was neither tall nor short, fat nor thin, and even her green hair could pass unremarked in a place like Gensokyo. You would have to see her eyes to know who, and _what_ , Yuka Kazaami was.

 _Oh, man! It's been_ forever _!_

The Chronicle warned humans to stay far away from Yuka in the wild, but she liked Marisa, at least a bit. They'd fought side by side over the alien landscape of Makai and she'd survived several incursions into Yuka's old manse in the dream world. If any human in all of Gensokyo could approach this youkai without getting incinerated, it was her. She still took a moment to put up every defensive ward she knew, though.

"Ah, Kirisame," Yuka said, glancing up as she landed. "It's been a while."

"Hey, hey," Marisa said, stretching out opposite her. "How ya been? _Where_ ya been?"

"I've been right here." The youkai leaned forward, eyes narrowing. The soil seemed to quiver with the force of her gaze. "Waiting. Watching. It's shy."

"One of your flowers?" Marisa fought the impulse to stick her hand into the mound. She had a notion she wouldn't keep it if she did.

"Yes, one of the very rarest. I've been encouraging it to grow for months, but the late spring scared it. And even with all my power, I can't simply force the pitiable little thing to sprout." Yuka pulled back a bit and rested her chin on her laced fingers. "A challenge like this is so rare. How could I look away for even a moment?"

Marisa smiled incredulously. "So you've been lying right here for the past however-many months?"

"I _did_ consider moving when the thaw didn't come on time. It was a moment of weakness. I take it you and your friend handled that?"

"Yeah, we did," Marisa said disinterestedly. "But seriously! Planting yourself for weeks and weeks and giving that little sprout everything you've got is kinda awesome."

"I'd thank you if I cared what you thought. Wait, quiet." Yuka quickly reached over and pushed Marisa's face into the ground. "Shut up, it's happening."

Marisa gauged the situation. As long as Yuka wasn't stronger than when they'd last met, it would take about two seconds of earnest effort to crack the protective spell around her skull, at which point she would instantly become a gob of witch salsa. Two seconds was an eternity in magical combat; if she recognized the youkai's killing intent, it would be more than enough time to slip free, counterattack and escape. There was no such intent at the moment, of course. Yuka was just being an ass.

"Ah," Yuka said, releasing her. "False alarm. I think it's teasing me."

"Oh yeah?" Marisa asked, spitting out a little dirt.

Yuka smiled. "I love a good cheeky flower."

"What about a good cheeky human?"

"I don't know of any good humans." Her smile started to show some teeth. "And I prefer to put them _into_ the ground."

Marisa couldn't help but laugh. "Ooh, you're givin' me shivers!"

Yuka's expression darkened and her attention returned to the mound. "If you're here to challenge me to a danmaku match, I'm not interested."

"Aww."

"Besides which, it's not like you to just ask. The witch I remember would have strafed me out of the blue or laid an ambush. It would have been the end of you, of course, but you would have died laughing."

"Yeah, I guess I don't jump people too much anymore, do I?"

"I thought Gensokyo was made to defang youkai; I didn't imagine it would work on humans, too."

"People've been telling me I'm basically a youkai, anyway."

"You shouldn't let them flatter you like that. You'll get a big head."

Marisa giggled.

"You liminal creatures are so irritating. And with all this nonsense Yukari put us through these last few decades, there will only be more of you." Yuka's expression was unreadable. "This miserable little zoo is destroying us."

"I thought the point of Gensokyo was to, like, not do that?"

"Maybe it was at first, but no longer. It's our mutable nature; create a new world around youkai, and we will change to match it. Do you know how long it's been since I've properly slain a human, or even heard one scream in terror and pain? Why haven't I already killed you for disturbing me? Gensokyo is changing us, all of us, into something else." Yuka sighed as though she were casually complaining about the weather. "And now we're expected to while away the last days of our true existence having cute little play fights with humans. I suppose genocide really _is_ just a game, after all."

"Hmm," Marisa said thoughtfully. "You know, I really think kicking me around a little will make you feel better."

"I told you, I'm not going to play danmaku with you."

"So let's just fight, then! First to yield!" Marisa hopped to all fours, crouching as though she would sprint right into Yuka's face. "Your flower will still be here when I've kicked your ass."

Yuka's eyebrows rose. "What?"

"I'm still _plenty_ fangy. Just 'cause I'm being more careful with my power doesn't mean I've lost it. Wanna see? I'll bite your ears off!"

"I'd smash you in a heartbeat."

"Maybe I'd surprise you."

Yuka chuckled, disbelieving. "What could you possibly gain from fighting me?"

"Same thing as always! I want to learn from watching you do your thing." Marisa glanced away. "Also, I guess I'm blowing off some steam, but it's mostly the first thing!"

Yuka considered this, then beckoned to the side. Rather than clambering to her feet, she simply floated upright and took a few stately strides towards the river while Marisa scrambled after. Behind them, a translucent gold shell curled up out of the earth around the mound. Marisa was relieved for a moment, but then got annoyed, wondering why she was so worried about the damn flower. _Maybe I_ am _going soft._

Marisa opened her mouth to suggest a number of lives before remembering that this wasn't that kind of duel. She knew exactly how many lives she had. _One._ Adrenalin crashed through her and she broke into a huge grin.

"I see you're still trying to steal our fire," Yuka remarked, eyes drifting down to the mini-hakkero in her hand. Blue light flickered in their depths. "And coming ever closer. How interesting."

"What, the Master Spark?" Marisa dismissed the reactor. Her personal wards would hold for a time without it, and she wondered if Yuka would take the bait. "You know I've got nothing against stealing, but that's for everyone, isn't it?"

Yuka shrugged. "It doesn't matter. If you come too close, you'll suffer the same fate as your old teacher." She cupped her hands and a shimmering ball of blue light appeared between them: the unfiltered fire of the Master Spark, summoned not through a clumsy machine but from Yuka's own heart. Marisa strangled on a surge of envy and avarice, fighting down the urge to make a grab for it. If she stuck her hand into _that_ , she definitely wouldn't be getting it back. "Poor little Mima, devoured from within by her own hubris. Swept away in these lovely currents, never to return to our world. Is it pity or envy that I feel?"

"That isn't what she…" Marisa started, then sputtered out as the old youkai laughed.

"She lied – to herself, and to you. Do you really think crawling mortals like you two could ever find what she sought?" Yuka dismissed the ball with a soft clap. "Mima is gone, and good riddance."

Marisa held her peace. She wasn't inclined to defend her old teacher, honestly. If Yuka was right about Mima's fate, then maybe she agreed: good riddance.

"She left quite a mark on you, by the way," Yuka commented. "I can taste her in your magic, hear her in your banter. Sometimes I almost think I could look into your eyes and see her in there, looking out."

The hakkero snapped back into Marisa's hand and spun up with an audible whine. Lightning prickled her skin and magma surged in her chest. Her connection to the Master Spark was a mere pinhole and it was already giving as much as she could take. The motions to ready her array of combat spells came easily, boiling up from beneath her memory. It had been a long time since she'd last gone full War Wizard, turning her whole body and mind into a weapon and loading her soul as ammunition. The exercise was familiar and comfortable, but in a way she was coming to dislike.

Yuka just watched. She didn't need to do anything like that; her murderous power was simply what she was. When she decided to attack, there would be no revving up reactors or placing intricate circles or calling out words of power. It would just _happen_. "You're not frightened?"

"Oh, I'm completely terrified," Marisa said cheerfully. "But I'll deal!"

"Strangely, I fear I would regret reducing you to drifting atoms," Yuka admitted. "I have some fond memories bound up in that obnoxious little body of yours."

"Oh yeah?"

"You'll be gone soon enough. I think I want to hold on to my nostalgia a little longer."

Marisa wobbled in place, nauseated by waves of relief and disappointment. She didn't unwind her spells just yet, though. "I always knew you were a big softie," she said, but couldn't quite manage a snarky tone.

"You must really want me to vaporize you," Yuka said wonderingly. "But now that you've drawn me away from my project, I'm feeling contrary. No need to show off any of my awesome power for a grubby little mortal like you." She pointed imperiously. "If it's really the only way to get rid of you, two cards, high impact. We duel until one of us can't continue. Take it or I'm going back to the mound."

Marisa started to punch her open palm, then froze, reconsidering. She would definitely learn less from a spellcard duel, and high-impact danmaku with a youkai like Yuka was still dangerous. She'd gotten broken bones and second degree laser burns from matches in the past, and if a bullet hit her throat or eye…

"Yes," Yuka said with a smile. "You could still die."

"Worth it." Marisa completed the motion, accepting Yuka's challenge.

Before the match even properly started, a green and gold magic seal formed behind Yuka and the image of a flower bloomed within it in pink.

 **Balsamine Sign – The Battlefield Blooms**

Green bullets raced up from the ground, gold bullets rained from above and pink bullets burst from Yuka. It was a barrage like Marisa hadn't seen since the netherworld, and she couldn't even spare the focus to counterattack. A gold bullet caught her a glancing blow across the chest and, as her lungs closed and stars flashed before her, she had a vision of being pummeled into oblivion on her way to the ground. She recovered just in time, retreating to the riverside to give the green bullets a longer trip. _God, I think just fighting her would've been_ safer _!_

Declaring a spellcard would clear the air, but Marisa didn't even have an instant to. Instead, she fished in her apron pocket and threw out and handful of delicate metal frames that sprang into spheres, premade spells that just needed a light touch to ignite. The orbs followed her in a glowing train, spitting illusion lasers after her foe. They weren't very accurate, but Yuka wasn't very quick, and it wasn't long before one scorched along her flank and ruined her vest.

"Cute," Yuka growled. Her form distorted grotesquely and suddenly there were two Yukas flying in opposite directions, confusing the laser orbs into uselessness. This time, Marisa saw that Yuka wasn't cloning herself, as she'd always assumed; there was still only one Yuka, but she was somehow in two places at once.

 _I can see it! I see how it's made!_ Marisa tumbled around volleys of pink and yellow petals, exulting. _That spell wouldn't work on my body, but maybe I can… oop._ Yuka had been varying the speed and density of her bullets as her doubled form maneuvered, and too late Marisa realized that she'd been boxed into a narrow slice of air. The Yukas had taken up positions on either side of her, and already the seal of her second spellcard was expanding behind both of them. If Marisa could think of the right spell to surprise her w –

 **Primal Fantasy – Double Spark**

As the beams roared in, Marisa dismissed the mini-hakkero and threw her arms and legs wide, laughing maniacally. " _WORTH IT!_ " she screamed, and became the meat in a Master Spark sandwich.


	3. Reimu and the Rakshasa

"Ah, that was refreshing," Yuka said. She wandered back to her flower, leaving her opponent convulsing and foaming in the grass.

It took some time for the cloud of agony and mirth to condense back down into a conscious Marisa. For a few minutes after, she just stared skyward and admired the coiling tendrils of smoke rising from her body. _I kept wanting to stick my hands into dangerous things,_ she thought dazedly. _No wonder Rumi likes me so much._ A wild fairy fluttered up to inspect her, but she bared her teeth and the little creature fled, shrieking like a happy child.

Finally, she struggled to sit up, pulled a stoppered vial out of her apron pocket and tossed it back. The potion would be lethal to humans who hadn't built up her immunity, but for her it would hopefully stave off permanent nerve damage from her forced over-channeling. Her hands were already starting to cooperate more.

 _That was so much worse than last time,_ she realized, working her shoulder in a circle. It seemed the channels she'd carved into her body for the Spark to flow through worked both ways. As she grew more adept at drawing and controlling its power, she would also become more vulnerable to it. _But wait… me being weak to the Master Spark means if Mima somehow_ does _come back…_

She flopped onto her back and laughed out loud. To her own surprise, the idea didn't bother her much. If Mima came back, it would be to find that her old student had transcended her. She kept laughing as the moment of surprise jarred something loose in her brain and she had a flash of 20/20 hindsight. _I should have used Magic Sign – Escape Velocity. I could have slipped out of between her hers and dodged the beams, then she'd have been out of cards._

Alright, time to get moving. First, she dragged herself down to the river and washed up a bit, clearing the way for a pungent mushroom-based burn salve. Dressing over her injuries was surprisingly manageable; maybe she was getting used to it. However, she was still spiritually scorched from the Dual Spark, and there was really only one place to go for that. Marisa took to the air unsteadily, shook herself off like a dog and set a new course. _Sorry, Rei!_

* * *

 _There's a 50/50 chance she gives me a volley of persuasion needles the moment I knock,_ Marisa reflected, cruising over the shrine steps at a steady pace. _'Bout a 100/nothing I deserve it, though, so whatever!_ She landed at the entrance and paused to conscientiously ladle water over her hands. On a whim, she tossed most of the money from Akyuu into the donation box. Maybe that would stave off some of the bad karma?

"Hey, Daichi," she called to a young man just leaving. He was a tall, handsome fellow with big, soulful eyes and quite the dashing moustache. _Wonder what he's doing here?_ Visitors to the shrine were rare, but the rigors of harvest season could make _anyone_ more religious. He gave her a quick smile and nod, then scurried for the steps. Oddly furtive, that one.

As Marisa neared the shrine building, Reimu wandered out. Her shoulder clipped through the edge of the doorframe, rippling oddly as she unconsciously bobbed into fantasy to avoid it. She popped through solid objects like that all the time, but never noticed and got defensive whenever anyone pointed it out. Marisa had even seen her absent-mindedly putting her hand through the slats of her donation box, but hadn't commented for fear that her arm would split open and spray blood everywhere. It was just one of the weird things about her, like how her bullets seemed to seek out their targets and animals always loved her. She really did lead a charmed life.

Marisa smirked. _What an asshole._

"Oh, it's you," Reimu said coolly.

"Yeah, it's me," Marisa replied.

Reimu stared at her for a few seconds, then turned back to the shrine, beckoning. "You're hurt. Let's get you sorted out before you have to show our newcomer around."

"Aw, what?" Marisa protested, following. "Aren't you going to let me have it?"

"I don't have the energy to, right now," Reimu said. "It'd be a waste of breath, anyway."

"Oof. Harsh!"

"That's what you wanted, isn't it? Sit down."

Marisa sat down against the wall, watching her friend uncertainly. Even after years of knowing her, it was still hard to read her voice and expressions. Sometimes, Marisa wondered if even _she_ knew how much of her attitude was gentle and forgiving, and how much of it was just not giving a damn. The balance was probably changing over the years, but it wasn't clear which way.

Reimu settled next to her, carefully rolled Marisa's sleeve up to her shoulder and started looking the burns on her arm over with dispassionate brown eyes. "Hmm. Usually, _I'm_ the one with these. Either you somehow managed to blast yourself or you went and pestered Yuka. I'm not sure which is dumber."

"Ha. That second one."

"And the goop is that mushroom salve of yours?"

"Yeah."

"It's gross, but I can't argue with results. So we just have to treat you for over-channeling. Wait here." Reimu walked away and Marisa relaxed, wondering what she was in for. Yukari had ensured that her fellow border guardian was versed in a variety of arts and faiths, which sometimes made Reimu seem less like a miko and more like a sorceress, an exorcist or even a physician. This time, she came back with a lacquered case of wickedly long needles. "You know your meridians are in weird places, don't you? I hope you appreciate how difficult you're making this for me."

Traditionally, Japanese acupuncture was a gentle art. It used short, slender needles and very rarely would a practitioner work them when they were already in the patient's skin. This… was not the art that Reimu had learned.

"I'm pretty sure those're a few gauges too big," Marisa pointed out. She pulled her blouse off and straightened her undershirt.

"Oh, they're gigantic," Reimu agreed, pressing cool fingertips into Marisa's belly. She hunted for a second or two and started sticking her shoulders and arms. "Hold still. I lost my medicine box when that rakshasa of yours attacked, so we'll have to settle for these youkai busting needles I used when I was little."

"Is that hygienic?"

Reimu made a noncommittal sound.

 _She's either being SUPER passive-aggressive, or she doesn't realize how ridiculous this is. I can't tell._ Marisa considered this and her eyes narrowed. _Well played, Rei._

"Need anything for that bruise?"

Marisa glanced down at her chest. "Eh."

"Now don't move for a few minutes," Reimu said. "This isn't quite orthodox, but I don't think anyone's ever had to treat a magician like _you._ I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing."

"Can I talk?" Marisa asked.

"Sounds like it."

Marisa started to laugh, but held off when her friend gripped her shoulders to keep her still. The moment she resolved not to move, the needles all started itching madly. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and then said, "So, ah, what did you do with the rakshasa?"

"Beat him at danmaku, then I had to seal him in one of Yukari's crystals when he kept coming." Reimu fished in her sleeve and came up with a round, pale purple orb. She shook it and red swirls rippled within. "Unless someone breaks him out, it'll be a good thousand years in here."

"YARRR!" said the orb.

"He doesn't seem too broken up about it," Marisa observed.

"Well, you know, shapeshifters," Reimu said dismissively. "The orb's just another form to him. Relatedly, you look pretty cute with tiger ears."

Marisa dropped her head back against the wall and groaned. _Another_ one?

"Maybe he thought he'd shock you by attacking you in your own form. And no, I have no idea why every shapeshifter who comes here takes your face." Reimu's expression lightened a few shades. "They should know by now that I blast you on sight."

"Only you didn't."

"I still got to riddle you with needles, so it's fine." Reimu squinted at her handiwork and nodded. "You're an interesting subject for this stuff. Every time you come back, your body's just a little weirder, and you always manage to do the most horrible things to yourself."

"Yarr!" the rakshasa added.

"Yes, I agree," Reimu said. "Sit tight, Marisa. I'll make us some food."

That left her alone with the four walls, the leaden sky outside and her thoughts. Rather than ponder the increasing weirdness of her body, she started piecing together spell components in her mind, trying to fit what she knew around what she'd seen of Yuka's magical telepresence. Maybe she couldn't actually make her body exist in two places at once, but an _image_ should be possible, at least. That would be a good thing to figure out for the joint spellcard with Ali—ugh. _Could you get out of my brain, please?_

"Look, I'm sorry about that," Marisa said when her friend finally came back with a steaming tray and a carafe of water. "It's, uh, it's an old reflex – give the dangerous demon you're dealing with the wrong name. It was supposed to be a pseudonym, but I choked." Marisa let out a long sigh. "And this feels really, really good."

"You were pretty burned up inside, even from before Yuka blasted you," Reimu said. "You _know_ channeling that stuff puts a lot of strain on you, even if you don't feel it so much anymore. Maybe you should ease up a litt…? _Feh._ Who am I kidding?"

Marisa giggled. "You know me."

"Look, just take it easy when you're showing the new girl around, will you?"

"Sure, sure."

"I mean it. We don't need another Satsuki."

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"

"'Hey, I'm welcoming a youkai who's legendary for her gentleness and honesty to Gensokyo,'" Reimu said, smiling and pushing her voice higher to imitate Marisa's. The prospect of food always made her more animated. "'I know! We can carouse through every bar in the human village, then burgle Yukari's seven-dimensional hell-manor! That'll make a great impression!'"

"You said to show her a good time."

Reimu shook her head, still smiling. "I got a letter from her the other day."

"Oh, yeah? She finally responded?"

"Yeah. It was really polite. She said she hoped everyone here was doing well and asked me to please never contact her again. Gensokyo's out a kirin."

"Damn."

"A healer like her would've been great for us." Reimu put her fingers carefully on Marisa's shoulder and yanked the first needle free, making her yelp in surprise. "So I guess that's how you earned this."

"Sure." Marisa tried her hardest not to wince with each pull. A few bled a little, but her friend had a pack of adhesive bandages ready. "This isn't acupuncture, Rei. This is butchery."

"I could've made it worse." Reimu pulled the last needle and blew on it. "See? Hardly any blood."

"I'm not supposed to bleed at all."

"I thought acupuncture was about power da ze?"

Without looking up from pulling her blouse back on, Marisa flipped her off.

"Oh, you know I just do it because you can take it." Reimu offered a pork dumpling in her bare hand. "It's camaraderie."

"If you want camaraderie, let's just have another match," Marisa replied, accepting it with a smile. "None of this needle-poking business. I'll charge up a nice big laser and comrade you right in the face!"

"No way," Reimu said complacently. "I'd friendship you into the ground."

She was probably right. "You're dreaming. _Dream Sign – Hopeless Delusion?_ I'll platonic love you until you can't see str… wait. Never mind." Marisa ate the dumpling in a single bite, barely chewing. "Adding 'platonic' doesn't make that sound less perverted, does it?"

Reimu sat next to her and drew the low table up with her ankle, bringing the modest spread of food into reach: rice balls, pork dumplings, cucumber salad and a big bowl of chewy candies from Kourindou. Reimu had never really stopped grocery shopping like a six-year-old. "So let's eat," she said.

They ate. The dumplings were juicy and the salad was fresh. The water was almost painfully cold, which was perfect. Marisa resisted the temptation of the sweets for as long as she could, giving Reimu time to gobble most of them up. Chill wind hissed through the shrine and a pale blue sky peeked between the clouds outside. Almost against her will, she found the peaceful atmosphere seeping into her bones. "We cool?" she finally asked.

"Of course, Marisa." Reimu held the crystal up in front of them. "This is hardly the worst thing you've ever done to me."

Marisa lowered her head a little.

"I'm going to give this crystal to you. He's spewing impurity and misfortune all over the place, and I feel a little bad keeping him in there. I think a magician like you could at least find a use for having him around, and if he makes you fly into a tree, bonus."

"Uh, sure." Marisa took the orb and slipped it into her apron pocket, strapping it closed. "Thanks, I guess."

"Maybe you could make him your familiar?" Reimu suggested.

"That's not how that works. It's a contract you both sign. I couldn't make him my familiar unless he was 100% on board with it, and I doubt…"

"Yo ho ho!"

"Uh, really?" Marisa blushed. "I-I'll think about it, I guess."

Reimu nodded, trying and failing to hide her amusement. "This sounds promising. Can I be the maid of honor?" She always pounced on those rare occasions she could actually embarrass Marisa, and this conversation was probably about to go on for _far_ too long. Maybe she'd show mercy if she had the faintest inkling of how personal and intimate the business of contracting a familiar was. Possibly.

Marisa wasn't up to driving arcane lore through her friend's skull, though. More to change the subject than anything else, she said, "So, hey, I passed Daichi on his way out. He playing hooky from the harvest?"

"Huh? No, this is Team 2's rest day. He was just up to make a quick offering."

"Hmm. The offering box looked pretty empty."

"You're nosy as ever."

Marisa considered this for a long moment. Something about her friend's expression, or maybe the way she was carrying herself… "Reimu, friend, I have _questions_."

"The answer to your first question is, 'yes, once in a while, when I get restless,'" Reimu said calmly.

 _Huh, that was easy._ "Okay. I just thought, like, aren't shrine maidens supposed to not…?"

"Come on, I'm putting an oni up in the spare room and you think _that's_ a problem?"

"Good point." Marisa crossed her arms thoughtfully.

Reimu chuckled. "I love that you… _you_ of all people are confused by this."

"I'm not confused, I just… hm…" This was making Marisa realize how much of their time together she spent talking about herself. Reimu probably had a lot going on that she just never mentioned. _Good thing I already hit my guilt quota for the day!_ "Guess it's finding out after knowing you so long that's getting me."

"Ah, it just never came up. It's not really that interesting."

"Says you."

"As for being a shrine maiden, not all traditions require us to be celibate. And that rule _definitely_ doesn't have anything to do with me." Reimu looked down to her hands. Her cadence shifted, as though she'd rehearsed this next part. "This power and responsibility is entrusted to me by the land of Gensokyo itself. It can't be taken from me by something as paltry as a man's touch."

"So cool," Marisa said, only half sarcastic. The way she cupped her hands to her cheeks definitely was, though.

Reimu mashed a rice ball into her face.

"No, but alright, this is just weird to think about. I mean, you've _got_ to know every girl I've put the moves on in the last six years!" In fact, with all of the gushing and venting she did, her friend knew a lot more than their names. Marisa snorted and some grains of rice flew out of her nose. "Any other surprising pastimes you want to share? Do you do bare knuckle boxing? Ships in bottles? Amateur fiction? Mysterious masked lawyering?"

"I breed turtles," Reimu replied, deadpan. "And Thursday is Celtic dance class."

"This is great – a whole side to you I never knew!" Marisa said brightly. "But if you need me to back off, just stick me with another needle."

"It don't see why you're so excited. But, sure, maybe we _could_ swap war stories," Reimu said, rising and wandering right through the table without noticing. "That'd get you used to the idea. And knowing you, you probably have a lot more than the ones I've heard."

"All right! War stories!" Marisa cried, rubbing her hands together. "Or should we say love stories?"

"I don't know." Reimu returned with a delicate little sake set in one hand and a huge bottle in the other. " _Love's_ a strong word…"

 _The evening's shaping up nicely!_ Marisa sat up and reached for her cup before remembering herself."Oh, wait. Hold on. We have an eavesdropper, remember?"

"Yarr," the orb said gratefully. He'd probably been getting pretty uncomfortable in there.

"Also, I guess I should go find the newbie." Marisa slapped her forehead. "'Fact, I think I'm already late. They're kind of crazy punctual over there."

"Another time, then," Reimu said easily, drinking straight from the _tokkuri_. "Be safe, Marisa… as you ever are."

Marisa sprang to her feet and took a long, half-flying stride for the door. "See you later, Rei!"

"Before you go," Reimu said suddenly, catching her just as she was sailing free. _That keeps happening._ "Have you had any dreams about Makai, lately?"

"What?" Marisa landed back on the deck with a deep _thunk_. "Maybe a couple nights ago?"

Reimu rubbed her chin. "If it's not just me, there might be something to it."

Marisa wandered back and leaned in the doorway. "You having the nightmares again?"

"Time to time, as always," Reimu said with a shrug. The sortie into Makai was what had finally motivated her and Yukari to formally broker the spellcard rules. Marisa had only seen her friend's confrontation with the goddess Shinki from a great distance, as light on the horizon and a roar on the wind, and that was close enough. "This is different, I think. The dreams are just little things. The feel of Makai's air, the sound of Shinki's voice… stuff like that, nothing urgent. I should check my almanacs. Probably, something regular is coming up."

 _Almanacs?_ Marisa couldn't help but perk up.

"That's a metaphor," Reimu said patiently. "If they were real books, I'd let you see them."

Marisa shrugged and started to leave again, but hesitated.

"It's fine, I'm fine. I just said, it's not the nightmares! Go on, you slacker!"

 _Probably, something regular is coming up._ The phrase tingled worryingly at the back of Marisa's brain as she took to the air. However, she was too distracted planning her evening with Manar and shamelessly speculating about Reimu's sex life to draw any connections.


	4. Manar and ?-?-?

The post-incident party for Thunderdome's arrival had been a subdued affair. Yukari had _just_ rescued them from a radioactive hell, and they were all in shock from having almost ruined their second chance. Sakuya only put in a cursory appearance for politeness's sake and the other incident resolver had raced right back up the mountain on some errand for her gods. For her part, Marisa had been training in her cave through the whole incident, and only found out there was a new village when she and a few other gregarious Gensokyoans were unceremoniously gapped in as an emergency party-saving measure. Of all the people she met on that strange, awkward night, she'd connected the best with a wanderer named Manar.

She was already at the meeting place, casually leaning on a low fence alongside a path leading into the Forest of Magic. "Hey, there," she called, waving a wide-brimmed hat, then set about carefully fitting it over her short afro. Just as she finished, Marisa coasted to a stop and held out a "sorry-I'm-late" offering – a big cup of steaming soft cider.

Manar was only about Marisa's height and very slender, magnified by a deep green duster closed tight against the autumn chill. An amber pendant with a cryptic silver seal on it hung around her neck, which was a good start, but she'd need a few more touches like that if she didn't want to stand out as overly austere in Gensokyo. Her narrow face seemed to settle in a somber expression, though she smiled a bit at her first sip of cider.

"Ah, so it's just you," Marisa said absently.

"Hm? Yeah, that friend of yours didn't come yet."

"No, I mean… I was checking out that pendant of yours, tryin' to figure out the rune or whatever, and I realized that your magic's just your own power. Maybe a family line thing that you trained up?"

Manar frowned. "You can tell just by looking at me?"

"I'll keep it under my hat," Marisa said, and fluffed it with both hands. "Lots of room in here. And don't worry – most youkai won't think to look at humans the way I just did, so you can still surprise 'em. I just know magic from effort when I see it!"

"Alright, then." Manar looked down at the pendant, flipping it in her fingers. "It just rattles me, being in a place where what I do's so normal you can just look at me and guess the details."

"Ahhh, I wouldn't say normal." Marisa grinned and reached out to lightly punch Manar's arm, but the newcomer stepped back to avoid her. "We're pretty much freaks, even here."

"That's a relief."

"Speakin' of which," Marisa started, then broke off clumsily. That segue had been funny in her head, but actually saying it made her feel a little bad. "Uh, Alice couldn't make it today. I guess something came up."

"That's too bad. I was looking forward to meeting her. She doing alright?"

"Yeah, she's fine," Marisa said. _I hope._

Manar shot her a quick sideways glance.

 _You saw through me? Damn it! That makes us even, then._ But then, one of the nice things about new friends was that they didn't feel entitled to pry. They had a lot to talk about, anyway. "So, figured out what to do with yourself yet?"

"Can't say I have," Manar admitted. She paused to wave to some passing villagers, who swerved to give them a wider berth. Casting them an irritated look, she continued. "My deal used to be watching over travelers. Not many places to go, here."

"Yeah. But the human village folks do get scurrying around towards the end of the season, and I guess when that Shrine up the mountain gets going, they'll need someone to guide visitors up and protect 'em. Think you could do that? I mean, you live right in the foothills."

Manar scratched her temple. "Aren't there two different civilizations of youkai up the mountain, and neither of them want humans tromping through? And don't they both have standing armies? And, come to think of it, aren't the ones further up basically superhuman?"

"Yeah. It'd get a little hairy, sure, but doesn't it sound great? I think you'd be good at it!"

"Well…" Manar trailed off. "Uh, you're not being sarcastic."

Marisa laughed. "Hard to get used to this place, huh?"

"Well, yes! And even if they wouldn't kill me, it just feels imperialistic to say, 'we humans have a right to the mountain you live on, and I'll fight you for it!'"

"That'd be a dick move if they were another group of humans, you're right, but they're youkai. Humans and youkai have a different relationship, so the conflict between us is different."

"How? I can't get over how weird all the rules for youkai are," Manar said. "Ah, no offense."

"Don't worry about it," Marisa said, wondering why she'd be offended. "It's like knowing you're the monster in the fairy tale. When, say, the kappa tell you to keep out of Genbu Ravine, they're not making a village border… they're making _'that spooky place you don't go at night.'_ Some jackass _has_ to go in there, or they're just wasting their time! And why shouldn't you be that jackass?"

Manar sipped her drink and considered this. "I'm not sure."

"Huh?" Marisa smirked and tried for a nudge, again evaded. _Guess I should stop doing that._ "Come on, newbie, I'm the expert, here!"

"I was just thinking about this place. You told me at the party it was like an experiment, remember? That scared me, but it's not like the experiments I saw back in the wastes. It's more… more like a project everyone here takes part in, all the humans, all the different kinds of youkai. Though there's no control group, so maybe it's more of a quasi-experimental design…"

"What experiments did you see in the wastes?"

Manar gave her an opaque look. "They were bad."

"Okay."

"But if the idea's to find a new way for humans and youkai to live in the same world, maybe you need more kinds of humans than the ones who've lived with youkai since forever. Maybe you have to add something new. The people from my village are a little like the youkai here because we saw our end… a world that was going to go on without us. So maybe we're able to understand them in a different way, and that might be what Yukari brought us here for." Manar looked down at her cup and swirled it. "That's what I think, anyway."

"Eh, who knows what Yukari is thinking," Marisa replied. "If it works out like you said, she'd just say it was always her plan either way. For now, though, just trust me. As a human, you can mess with a youkai all you want, and she'll try to smash you right back, and all's well. Youkai are defined against humans, so if you go up against one, you're just giving her new chance to define herself. You follow?"

Manar nodded slowly, then said, "No."

Marisa laughed.

"I think I'll just need some time," Manar said, smiling along with her. "It's kind of a simple idea, I guess, but when it's a flesh-and-blood person you're talking about…"

"Sure thing," Marisa said charitably. "And don't worry if it takes a while to get the hang of it. I bet I'd have a hard time in _your_ world."

"Heh. You'd last five minutes."

Marisa shrugged. She was used to being underestimated.

The adventurers leaned on the fence and sipped their drinks, half marshalling their thoughts, half idly watching the clouds. As they relaxed, a young woman in yellow happened down the path and paused before them, cocking her head. They didn't react as she circled them, looking them up and down with bright, fascinated green eyes. Glistening blue tendrils wound about her shoulders and hips, slowly relaxing and drifting out in graceful coils as she got a better sense of them. Manar spared her a brief, disinterested glance and immediately forgot about her. Marisa's brows knit as she started to get the feeling that they weren't alone.

"This is boring!" the girl chirped, ignored. "Keep talking!"

Marisa suddenly got uncomfortable with the silence and said, "So I've been thinking about cool places we could visit. I was gonna suggest flying up into the border mountains to see this weird old poltergeist mansion, but for some reason, I'm thinking of going underground now."

The girl in yellow gasped in excitement and slipped a stone from her pocket into Marisa's.

"I heard about the underground," Manar said. "One of the tengu at the party said there's a whole world down there. Cities and clouds and everything."

"Doesn't that sound awesome?"

"Yeah, but…" Manar started, but caught herself.

"But what?" the girl in yellow asked avidly. "Keep going!"

"…I thought surface youkai weren't allowed to go down there," Manar finished, then blinked in confusion.

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with-?" Marisa set her cider on the fencepost and turned to face her with a sardonic, "Really? _Really?_ "

Manar sucked a breath in through her teeth. "Sorry."

"Well, you're new here," Marisa said after a tense moment. She flapped a hand carelessly. "Guess it's an easy mistake."

"Wait, what just happened there?" the girl in yellow snapped, pacing between them. "I can't hear your thoughts! You have to be more specific!"

"So, like, why did you think I was a youkai?" Marisa asked.

" _Ohh!_ " the girl in yellow cried. "Awkward!"

"Well…" Manar said, eyes drifting to the side as she thought back. "Mainly because you use magic as easy as you breathe."

"That's how it looks, huh? Good!"

"Also, you were talking about flying around and fighting monsters and demons. And I've never seen anyone dress as witchy as you and mean it. And I heard someone calling you the Starlight Berserker, which sounds like a youkai name. And your eyes are _bright gold_. And earlier, when we were talking about humans and youkai, you never said 'we.' In fact, I'm pretty sure you were saying 'you' to refer to humans."

"I was, wasn't I? That was the general you. 'This is how you skin a cat' you, where either one of us could skin the cat."

"Why would you skin a cat?"

"I don't know, to make a shamisen?" Marisa shrugged. "'Least you didn't make a crack about my hair. Village folks get weird about it. It's like they've never heard of bleach."

"Ah, you're not a natural blonde?"

"This's how it's coming out of my head, but there's nothing natural about it!" Marisa grinned and tapped her temple. "Same deal with the eyes."

The girl in yellow picked up a length of Marisa's hair and sniffed it, then retreated as the witch aimlessly swatted at her. For just a moment, Marisa turned her head after and blinked, but she didn't see anything particularly interesting. Just some grass and trees and a goofy youkai who wouldn't stick in her mind.

"Anyway, I really am sorry," Manar said. "I shouldn't have assumed."

"Whatever. No worries."

Manar sighed.

"Aww, what's wrong?" the girl in yellow asked.

The newcomer clearly wasn't sure why she was saying this out loud. "It's just that when we talked at the party, I felt like we really connected, in an odd way. Maybe not as well as I thought, it looks like. But I said to myself back then, 'If this was what youkai are like, then we'll have no problem living alongside them.'" She looked away, embarrassed. "And I guess we did get along with the youkai alright, but…"

Marisa snickered to herself and shook her head.

"Nope, nope, you laughed!" the girl said. "You can't not share, now!"

"Heh. Now, I guess I'm starting to wonder if I should ask you to dinner sometime," Marisa said, then shut her eyes and slapped a hand over them. _She doesn't even want me to touch her! I'm not even in the market! WHY THE HELL DID I SAY THAT?_

Bored of her game, the girl in yellow took a deep pull of Marisa's cider and wandered off, leaving them stewing in surprise and awkwardness. "Well, I'm flattered," Manar finally said. "But, ah, I don't really swing your way. And anyway, you were with that sweet little kappa at the party, weren't you? And wasn't there someone in the village? That'd make me number three."

"Number two, maybe," Marisa admitted. "Not sure how things are going with Riko."

Manar smiled and leaned back again. "Well, even if I _did_ play for the right team, I doubt I could settle for less than number one."

"You'd be number one when you're with me!"

"Nope. Always or never."

"Oh, man. Greedy!"

"Yes, Marisa. _I'm_ the greedy one."

"Ha!" Marisa finished her drink in a single swallow, not pausing to wonder where the rest had gone. She also didn't notice Manar jump when she casually vaporized her cup with a flash of conjured fire. "Nah, I don't know what came over me there." She took the stone out of her pocket and turned it over thoughtfully. It was a dark green fragment of masonry, strangely warm to the touch. _When did I pick this up?_ "I have a better idea, anyway. How about we go on a little burglary?"

Manar's good cheer vanished. "What?"

"Sure! It's just a little breaking and entering."

"Just a little – are you _serious?_ "

"Just the other day, I read in the old Chronicle about this cool place down there – the Palace of the Earth Spirits! Doesn't that name just make you quiver all over? All of a sudden, I just can't get it off my mind! A reclusive satori lives there and drives…"

" _Back up,_ " Manar snapped. "Are you seriously suggesting we go and rob someone? Like, this isn't a joke you're making?"

Marisa laughed out loud. "Yup!"

"And I suppose it's okay because, I'm gonna guess, _she's_ a youkai?"

"Well… yes?" Marisa said, losing her balance. This wasn't how she pictured her proposal going over.

"No!"

"No?"

Manar floundered for a moment, then rubbed her eyes. "Look, I don't know how things are here, but I don't think I can… back where I came from, the whole world was trying to kill us. We all scratched out our little safe spaces and tried to hold on. We were always inches from the end. So busting into someone's haven and taking their stuff was beyond disgusting – it was violating and killing them, even if they never saw you."

Marisa nodded thoughtfully. She'd definitely gone about this the wrong way. "Okay, I have an idea. Let me show you something."

* * *

The came to a stop about 500 meters above their fence. Manar had been gripping the bristles of Marisa's broom awkwardly, and now let go and to drift under her own steam. She'd taken to flight as well as any outsider, but still had trouble with takeoffs and sometimes landings. Marisa made a mental note not to laugh if she crashed on the way back down.

Even as fall drew to a close, Gensokyo was magnificent. The human village stood like a castle in its bulwark of green terraced fields. Fingers of fog settled over the tangled gray canopies and slipped between the emerald peaks of the pine trees further out. Youkai Mountain hulked before them, wreathed in clouds and the spray of the Nine Heavens Waterfall. As they hovered, a rolling dogfight broke out among the fairies of the Forest of Magic and they fluttered in a colorful, tumbling cloud through the treetops, shrieking and laughing.

Marisa tried to imagine how all of this would look to someone from a ruined, poisonous world and couldn't. Manar drifted down a few paces and pulled the brim of her hat down over her eyes, though she clearly couldn't stop smiling. If nothing else, this jaunt had improved her mood.

"Land of plenty!" Marisa finally said, throwing her arms wide.

"And also plenty of people who need it," Manar pointed out.

"And youkai _don't_ need it – they need _us_. Look, uhh… see the Scarlet Devil Mansion down there?"

"Could hardly miss it," Manar replied. They turned together to the hodgepodge of crimson wings on the shore of the Misty Lake, standing out violently from the grayish grounds and dark water. Its courts were still in the height of autumn – clearly one of the benefits of having a time-manipulating majordomo. The awful clang of its clock tower reached them faintly on the wind. "That's where Sakuya's boss lives, the vampire?"

"That's right! Remilia Scarlet. And she doesn't use that house like a human would. If she was weaker, Remilia'd love to live in a belfry somewhere and snack on random folks at night. But then she'd be hiding. _That_ would be the rub! Do you see?" Marisa leaned in, eyes bright. She almost reached for Manar's shoulders, but checked herself and whirled to point down at the mansion. "It's a _challenge!_ It's a big beautiful cave surrounded by bones! That gaudy house is her getting up every day – uh, night – and doin' crotch chops at the Human Village, just _waiting_ to see if any of 'em have the guts to try her!"

"That doesn't…"

"Look, come on. Maybe you guys _are_ here to figure out a new way of living with youkai. Maybe so! But don't you think you should see some of the ways _we_ do, first?"

Manar crossed her arms silently.

"I guarantee you that if we get caught, the mistress of the palace will have this grand speech all ready for us. And we'll have a great big ol' spellcard duel and we'll all have the time of her life! I'll be dangerous, but we're tough, and so's she!" Marisa pointed into the air decisively. "Besides which, I have _standards_. There are rules for this."

"There are, huh?" Manar was starting to look resigned.

"Look, I'll let you chicken out any time you want, no hard feelings. But at least come down and see the Underground with me!"

Manar sighed.


	5. Parsee and Yuugi

The only reliable way into the underground was the Dark Blowhole. The mountains on this end of Gensokyo were dark and jagged, and the sheer cliffs on the southern face of Youkai Mountain towered behind them, blotting out the sun. The Blowhole itself looked like it had been driven into the mountainside with an enormous spike, radiating deep cracks through the rumpled stone. There were only a few tough, scrubby plants here; just about everything else seemed to have been blown away by the periodic blasts of dank air roaring up from below. The place couldn't have been more foreboding if Yukari had hired a cadre of landscape artists for that purpose. Given their contract with the surface, perhaps she had.

The adventurers stood at its lip, buffeted by a groaning blast of wind.

"Okay," Manar admitted, gazing into the inky depths. "I'm a little excited now."

"Glad to hear it! But before we go in, I'm gonna lay the first rule on you. Rule 1: if you're doing this, don't burgle anyone who couldn't kick your ass if they caught you. I mean, it doesn't have to be a sure thing, but it at least has to be a real fight. It's just no fun without the risk!" Marisa pounded her open hand. "So what I'm saying is we might get in a fight. You bring that gun of yours?"

"Better! I went to the friend you told me about and he made a wand for me." With a quick sweep of her hand, Manar summoned a device that was about as long as Marisa's broom. Rinnosuke had clearly modelled it after her rifle, with a long copper rod fitted to a body of dark wood, but the "barrel" was capped off at the end and a cutaways along its length revealed plates with embossed runes. A telltale hexagon close to the stock suggested that a smaller cousin to the mini-hakkero was mounted within, but it was likely much weaker if Manar intended to use it regularly.

Marisa jolted. "Whoa!"

"I know, right? Not what I pictured when he said 'wand,' but I like it!"

"Oh, not that, I mean Rinnosuke's work is always great," Marisa said, brushing it aside. A tiny corner of her was gibbering and making grabby hands at it, so she had to dissuade herself any way she could. "But how'd you conjure it like that?"

"What? It's just the spell you taught me, like with your reactor."

"Yeah, but…" Marisa flipped the hakkero into her hand. "I can't use it for anything that big. I tried with a broom once and the thing exploded all over me!" _And the last person I saw pull it off…_

"That's strange." Manar held her wand out and looked it up and down. "I didn't even realize I was doing anything special! Do you think it's the wand itself?"

"Maybe." Marisa expected to be pissed. And she was, a little; it'd taken her months to get that spell down! But then, that was how magic worked – no matter how skilled you got, someone with a new perspective could always come along and improve on your work. She'd learned a lot about magic by copying and improving spells from more experienced and powerful magicians, so why was being on this end such a surprise? "I'll just have to watch you do it again a few times, sometime. We'll figure your trick out together."

"Sounds good."

They turned to the Blowhole together as another wall of wet, stale air rushed out. They would be descending into a dark world teeming with sinister creatures, nearly as strange to Marisa as it was to her companion. All they had to go on was a bestiary and a vague map that were decades out of date, and there would be hundreds of meters of solid rock between them and any help.

"Down we go?" Manar asked.

"Down we go," Marisa confirmed.

* * *

Just a few meters in, the Blowhole became a world of its own. A constant groan rose and fell between gusts as air raced through the tangle of tunnels far below. The temperature dropped for the first few minutes of their descent and then started a long, steady climb. Fairy wings fluttered in the darkness above and below, making a sound unsettlingly like indistinct voices whispering.

Marisa plunged confidently, aiming her broom straight down into the darkness. Manar was more tentative, falling feet-first with the tails of her duster trailing away from her slim legs. A small, dim point of light hovered between them; Marisa's thought had been to avoid attracting too much attention, but as the sunlight faded overhead, it became a blinding beacon for anything lurking in the dark. Thankfully, apart from a few eerie flashes from the fairies' eyes, there were no signs of interest in them.

"Do you think - ?" Manar started, but even her soft voice was startling enough to jerk them both to a stop. "Sorry," she mouthed.

Marisa looked up and down the shaft, then shrugged. "I figure we can talk in here," she said loudly. "I mean, who'd hang out in a place like th-?" Something fell past her head, missing her by a few centimeters. " _Yeek!_ "

Manar pivoted in the air, aiming back along the angle it had fallen. "Fairy?"

"Hell if I know."

"Here, I think I know how to…" Manar fiddled with the embossed plates in her wand, switching a few out for a new set of runes. Marisa patiently waited while she worked up a surprisingly elegant detection spell and swept her wand across the darkness above and then below them. "I'm getting… nothing. Just more fairies, and a… that's… probably just noise."

"Alright, then! Onward and downward!"

Almost immediately, Marisa twisted in the air to avoid a thick gray strand stretched across the cavern. Slapping it hesitantly, she found that it was sticky to the touch. The shaft was full of crisscrossing strands further down, growing denser and denser until, at the edge of their light's reach, they looked like a monstrous cobweb. The adventurers slowed down to weave through, watching in every direction for whatever had spun them.

The strands should have been easy to avoid, but Marisa kept getting distracted or spacing out at the wrong moment and plowing into them. They broke just hard enough to hurt, and stuck just hard enough that it really stung to rip them off. After smacking through about her sixth strand, she drifted to a stop and rubbed her forehead in frustration. "Okay, there is _no way_ this is happening by chance!"

"Yarr-har-harrr!" the rakshasa crowed.

Manar spun in place with her wand at the ready, but faltered when no menace appeared.

"Just a rakshasa I'm babysitting," Marisa assured her, slapping her pocket casually. "Totally sealed. He was just having a bit of fun with me, nothing to worry about. Anyway, come on, we're almost out of the web!"

"Oh. Uh, okay. You could've told me we had…" Manar trailed off, gazing into the tangle of strands above them. There was a figure up there, maybe human, hanging between two of them and gazing back with softly glowing yellow eyes. When they made eye contact, it gave her a small nod and retreated.

"Something wrong?"

"I thought I saw a…" Manar sneezed explosively. When her vision cleared, the figure was gone. She searched the darkness with another sweep of her wand, but they were once again alone with the fairies. "I… never mind. Let's go."

* * *

They eventually left the fairies behind as the air grew yet hotter and thicker. Mist coiled around the tunnel walls, dispersing with every blast of wind and reforming. Eventually, Manar had to let her hat fall back onto its strap to free her impressively frizzing hair. Marisa gave her an amused look and she blandly replied, "Getting warm."

"Yup. Happens when you get this deep, I think." Marisa decided not to mention the 'abandoned hell' part. That would probably be a bridge too far. "I hear they got this nifty air circulation thing going on, though, so it won't get too bad." As if on cue, they had to brace themselves for another blast of wind.

"Is this the time to mention I'm getting a little claustrophobic?"

Marisa spread her arms, taking in the vast darkness around them. "You'll be fine."

"Sure."

"Oh, here's where we get off," Marisa announced, coasting to a stop. She gestured and their pinprick of light grew, illuminating enormous runes carved into the walls of the tunnel. "Floor B666! The directions say we go north from here, over a river. I think I can hear it, even!"

"Six-sixty-six? Great. That's auspicious."

The air cleared a bit as they started along the side-tunnel's gently winding course, and the wind was cooler. Patches of phosphorescent fungi grew in the rough walls and floor, drowning out their little light whenever they passed by. The sound of running water grew steadily, and Marisa raised her voice over it. "Also, when we get deeper in, to the towns and stuff, we'll actually have to be a bit sneaky, yeah? We're _technically_ allowed here, but I guess you could say we're misbehaving. And you never know what devils will do when they see a couple of cute little humans like us."

"Devils?" Manar asked, squinting. There was something very bright ahead, but she couldn't quite make it out through the glare. She slowed down a bit to let her eyes adjust.

"Oh, yeah. We'll be seeing devils and oni and grudge spirits… just all _kinds_ of nasty folks down here! But as long as we stick to the shadows and keep qui-" _THWAP._ Marisa splayed awkwardly in the air and then dropped like a rock. A pattern of green hexagons spread from the point of impact, racing all over an otherwise invisible wall.

Manar threw her heels forward as though she were skidding on thin air, but she didn't brake fast enough. "Maris-!" _THUD._

Since she'd crashed herself, Marisa decided it would be okay to point and laugh.

Manar pointedly ignored her as she rose, dusting off her jacket. They had finally reached the river, and fallen to a high-arched moon bridge spanning it. Despite its desolate surroundings, it was vividly painted in red, gold and green and strung with bright lanterns. The river split on the west side of the tunnel, half continuing beneath the wall and half racing alongside their path. The lanterns' glare thickened the darkness around them and the river's babble overpowered the wind, isolating them in a little pocket of light.

"Well, now, I didn't expect anything like _this_ ," Manar commented, almost yelling to be heard over the water. "Kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, who paints it?"

"Yup! Spooky stuff!" Marisa agreed. "Just what I was hoping for!"

Manar smiled despite herself. "Ha, right."

Marisa tossed an experimental bullet into the barrier. It hit with a solid _spang_ and another wash of green ripples. "I've seen walls like this – Yukari has a few in her manor. We can break through if we blast it hard enough, but that'd probably bring the roof down on us. Best thing would be beating up whoever made it."

"Huh. Well, I doubt whoever-it-is would just…"

A pallid, waterlogged hand slapped down on the bridge's rail next to them. Manar's move to help faltered when it pulled a pair of malevolent green eyes into view. The woman who mounted the rail before them was painfully thin, weighed down with sodden, tattered dress that might once have been fine. "What are you doing here?" Water gushed from her mouth and her raspy voice somehow cut right through the river's clamor.

"Just passin' through," Marisa said easily, waving her companion back. Manar could feel the hakkero's power pulse out, belying the witch's relaxed stance. Dangerous spells coiled silently in her body, coursing with starfire. As always with unfamiliar youkai, she was angling for a friendly match, but preparing for a fight to the death.

"Just passing through," the youkai hissed. "How very nice."

"You must be the bridge princess, Parsee Mizuhashi, am I right?" Marisa stuck out her hand. "Pleased to meetcha!"

Parsee completely ignored it, tilting her head to stare balefully over their heads.

"What? I'm about to kick your ass up and down the river, but that's no reason not to be pol…"

"Marisa," Manar said tightly.

Another woman hovered over the opposite rail, arms crossed and glaring with the same eerie green eyes. She could have been the wretch's twin and even had the same outfit, but she was dry, clean, soft and well-fed. In its pristine condition, the dress was _fabulous._

"Or are _you_ Parsee?" Marisa asked without missing a beat. She lightly hopped from between them and shifted to bring both into view. "You do look more like a princess, gotta say!"

"I am," the dandy said.

"And I am," the wretch added.

"Haha, okay! That's weird, but I can roll with it! Now which of you wants a laser to the face first?"

Manar growled and cut in. "Do we have to jump to that? Listen, is there a toll or something?"

"When you set foot on my bridge," the wretch said, sitting on the rail and dropping to her feet. "You offered yourself as the toll."

"You will not pass unbloodied," the dandy continued, landing lightly on the other side. They started walking towards each other. "I won't allow it."

"But why?"

"Because I hate you," the women said in unison, continuing right into each other. They became a smear of green light and resolved into a single body. When she spoke again, it was with one voice. "I loathe you both, utterly, from the bottom of my heart. I have from the moment I saw you."

"Boy, you don't waste any time!" Marisa said brightly.

"I'm… sorry to hear that?" Manar added.

"Even if I killed you, you would be free to leave this bridge," the combined being said, pointing accusingly. She looked mostly like the dandy, but the wretch showed up like an afterimage when she moved too fast. "And I can't even do _that_ … shackled by the spellcard rules, all I can do is make you suffer. _And I will._ "

"That sounds _awesome!_ " Marisa cried, and kicked off into the air. "Try it!"

"Wait, aren't we going to set impact and lives and things?" Manar cried, casting a hand after her. "I thought–!" She went over the rail to avoid a volley of bullets that flashed and sparkled like tumbling emeralds. One caught her back as she dove and skipped her violently off the surface of the water, but she recovered in time to land against the cavern wall like a spider.

"Nope!" Marisa called, weaving carelessly around the barrage. "That's just if you wanna be polite! She can't try to kill us, but she _can_ put us down!"

"I envy you!" the bridge guardian howled, leaping towards Marisa. Every word came with another spray of bullets. "Your hair is like gold and your eyes are the sun! Your veins are full of fire! You live beneath the open sky and the whole world is yours! I envy your gall!"

"Sounds about right!" Marisa replied. She released a swirling blast of star bullets, more to contest her opponent's aesthetic than to actually try and hit her.

"And _you!_ " The guardian whirled on Manar, slinging out another volley. The impacts chased her up the wall and across the ceiling. "Beneath the beautiful thundercloud of your hair lies a storm of dreams and portents! Your eyes are night skies full of distant, twinkling worlds! I envy your vision!"

"How–?" Manar started, then swatted a bullet away from her face with an awkward swing of her wand. She was knocked coasting backwards to Marisa's side, and the sides squared off.

Parsee snarled, tears tracing down from the corners of her eyes, and the barrier rippled behind her in a hypnotic pattern that surged with her breath. "I am the princess of this bridge!" she cried. "This miserable plank is all I have, and you _can't cross it!_ "

The adventurers pulled together, conferring over their shoulders. "See how happy she is?" Marisa asked softly, grinning and revving the hakkero.

"She looks miserable," Manar muttered back, racking her wand. It ejected a tiny scroll case trailing silver smoke.

"Well, yeah! She's happy she's miserable, know the type? And she's been waitin' for someone to come and make her miserabler for a long time!" Marisa lunged and her voice rose in a shrill battlecry. "So let's ruin and/or make her day!"

Manar planted her feet on the thin air, taking aim. "Sorry, kid," she said. "Hope this helps."

Parsee twirled in place and separated back into two forms, leaving a trail of sickly green light as a magic seal formed a dance floor beneath her. One body, graceful and neat as a pin, swung her arms in lazy arcs that trailed spreads of slow bullets. The other, ragged and desperate, hurled enormous, lightning-fast bullets like a machine gun. They didn't coordinate at all (in fact, they almost seemed to be attacking each other), but the barrage was so dense that it didn't help much.

 **Tongue-Cut Sparrow – Hatred for the Humble and the Rich**

 _Yes, I've got it!_ Marisa realized, tracing the spellwork in her mind even as she careened through the thickest part of the barrage. One of the little bullets glanced off her cheekbone, jerking her head to the side, but she barely noticed. _I can use that! Between her and Yuka, I've cracked it!_ "Hey, Manar, go after the whiny one!" she called.

For a wonder, Manar caught her meaning. The reactor in her wand spun up with a deep drone and silvery light crackled down its length. Wobbling and jackknifing clumsily in the air, she was too flustered to declare anything more complicated than her signature spellcard. It was a powerful attack and a clear statement of her aesthetic, but it didn't quite live up to the spirit of danmaku.

 **Perfection – One Beautiful Shot**

For her part, Marisa decided to go with a classic.

 **Love Sign – Master Spark**

Two beams flashed out and two bodies were swallowed in arcane fire. The bridge princess's day was ruined, and it was made.

* * *

Manar seemed subdued as they followed the river deeper into B666, and not just from the hits she'd taken. Not long after they caught sight of the devil city's distant lights, she turned in the air to gaze backwards contemplatively. Marisa almost reminded her to stay wary, but when her companion shifted to take aim at a lurking fairy she hadn't even noticed, she changed it to, "Oh, come on. You're not feeling bad, are you?"

"I know, I know. But they – she – they look so human! She was so desperate and all she wanted was for us not to go through there. And we'll probably have to do it again on our way back up! It's hard to remember that they _like_ to fight us. Or need to, or however that works." Manar turned forwards again and glowered at the river below. "Besides, there are folks around where I'm from who aren't human but you _don't_ blast, so that doesn't help."

Marisa chuckled. "Man, why're you worried about it? That was a textbook youkai-busting!"

"Yarr!"

"See? Even the youkai agrees with me!"

"I know, it's just that – it's just what she reminded me of." Manar coasted in the air, looking thoughtful, then popped ahead when Marisa didn't slow for her. "It was like when people break from pain, or isolation, or stress, or whatever. And sometimes it makes them scary or hard to deal with, and everyone forgets that they're anything more than whatever broke in them… oh, but I don't know if this applies to youkai, or the kind of youkai she is."

Marisa looked away. She'd thought about sharing what she knew of the bridge princess's origin, but thinking about it as something that actually _happened_ to a person she'd blasted rather than just a scary campfire story was making her stomach churn. Besides which, she didn't want to be reminded of people breaking from stress just now. _Alice, I'm begging you – get out of my skull, already!_

"Maybe Parsee really _is_ the break, though, or an embodiment of one. If I understand it right, a youkai could form like that. Like the echo of a tragedy, perhaps?" Manar sighed briefly. "It looks like I'm depressing you, huh? I get carried away sometimes."

Marisa considered her response for a moment. "I get what you mean, about forgetting they're not human," she said. "I do it, too. There's this little crowd of youkai ankle-biters I kind of keep out of trouble, and I keep forgettin' they'll never grow up. I mean, they could change or get real scary and I have plans for that, but they'll still be kids when my kids have kids. If, uh, I have kids. Sometime I'll introduce ya – they'd love a new opponent!"

"Oh, hell, I don't know. This wand's too much like my old gun for that. I don't know if I could even point it at someone who looked like a ki…" They finally emerged from the tunnel. " _Oh._ "

A gigantic cavern opened before them and a city sprawled across its uneven floor, split by the river. The weathered hodgepodge of stone buildings would have looked like a ruin, but the streets were lined with soft orange lights and the taller towers were speckled with lanterns in many colors, yellow and blue and green. Tiny figures bounded through the craze of narrow streets in twos and threes, kicking off of walls and playing like children. Water condensing on the distant ceiling reflected the city lights, making strange constellations that glistened between the clouds.

"Huh." Marisa surveyed the scene with a grin, arms akimbo. "I always wondered how many of 'em there were down here."

They drifted over the rooftops, dipping low enough to hear the devils' rough voices. They didn't seem so bad, at least to each other. Small explosions and sprays of fire burst here and there in the streets around them, but the brutal sorts who lived down here would never hold on to hard feelings after little spats like that. Marisa smiled and relaxed; there was just something comforting about a land of frank, straightforward, grudgeless violence, where you could just smash someone's face in without _really_ hurting them. "Got nothing to say?" she asked.

Manar's reply was strangely high-pitched. "Marisa… listen. Even if everything goes wrong, or we end up dueling each other or do something awful…" She let out a shaky breath and her voice dropped to its normal register. "Well, shit _._ Even if we _die_. I wanna say, thanks for taking me down here."

"Sure, I…" Marisa broke off with an uncomfortable laugh. "Oh, wow, you're tearin' up."

"I… you don't understand! It's a city! A real, honest-to-god, teeming _city_ full of people living their lives!" Manar drifted down and settled on the corner of a rooftop, squatting with her hands between her shoes like a gargoyle. After a moment of wobbling for balance, she lifted a hand to cover her tears. "It's like the stories from before! I never thought I'd get to see one."

Marisa landed beside her, reminding herself not to lay a hand on her shoulder. "Glad you came, then," she said, affecting a gruff tone.

"I don't even care that it's a sinister underground city that smells like brimstone," Manar said. "This is just…" She bolted to her feet, slipping off of the wall but hovering in place, pointed upward and screamed.

Marisa grabbed her arm. "Quiet! What if someone – ?"

A great section of the cavern ceiling, at least half a ton, slammed down through a distant spire, swallowing the tiny figures at its base in a cloud of thick dust. A split second later, the shockwave pounded through their bodies with a godly _CRASH_ , knocking them reeling. _Wind,_ Marisa commanded with a quick sweep of her arm, and the wall of dust parted before hitting them, though she still jerked back from a stinging chip to the forehead. For a few seconds, they were engulfed in their little shell and the impact reverberated in an endless roar. Inaudibly, Manar let out a long, quavering moan, clutching at the air around her head.

In the ringing quiet that followed, they could see figures leaping about in the billowing gray, throwing out gouts of flame and crackling bolts that turned it into a thundercloud. As their hearing returned, they could make out a faint song – a call-and-reply, a gravelly voice singing long, melodic lines and a great booming chorus responding, "AND IT ALL COMES DOWN!" The devils they'd thought crushed were doing a circle dance around the rubble, laughing raucously.

"Was-was that supposed to happen?" Manar asked in a thin voice, finally prying Marisa's hand off of her arm and swatting it away.

"I dunno. Looks like it."

"I hear devils love their festivals," Manar said, already starting to cool down. Her eyes were still huge, but now it was with interest, darting among the distant revelers. "I heard some oldsters from your village talking about some big devil party coming up on the surface. A moot or something. Maybe it's something like this?"

"A big devil pa…?" Marisa started to turn, but then froze, staring past her.

"What's wr-?" Manar turned as well. " _Ah._ "

A woman in a vivid red kimono was lounging in an open casement across the street, dangling a leg over the edge and smiling at them over a shallow sake bowl. She looked slender from a distance, but she couldn't have been shorter than two meters and her limbs were like tree trunks. Pale hair stirred in the remnants of the shockwave and a long red horn arced up from her forehead, somehow majestic instead of ridiculous. "Humans," she rumbled pleasantly. "What a surprise."

"Yo," Marisa replied, covering a surge of panic. She could deal with powerful youkai when she was prepared, but having an oni just _appear_ in her bubble was a kick in the gut.

"Hi," Manar added. If she was scared, it didn't show. Did she know what they were dealing with?

"If you were wondering, it's a demolition party," the oni said, standing slowly. Even that simple motion was a little terrifying, revealing that they would barely stand to her ribs. Also, she was casually breaking through the stone window frame with her head. She adjusted her kimono and gazed over the mayhem in a placid, satisfied way. "Then we have the building party, and then the housewarming party. Down here, everything's a celebration!"

"Sounds festive?" Manar ventured.

The oni tossed them a lazy smile and lifted her bowl in salute. "Enjoy your visit, squirts," she said, then hopped from her perch with a call of, "And thanks for the tip!"

Manar and Marisa looked at each other, flinching at the distant _krump_ as she finally landed. A cry of, "Yuugi! Heyyy, Yuugi!" rose below, and the festivities surged up on the streets around them. They looked up and, sure enough, lasers danced among the stalactites in the clouds far overhead.

"Let's keep going," Marisa said.

Manar nodded mutely.

* * *

The Palace of the Earth Spirits was just as impressive as the city, in its way. At first it looked like a solid obelisk of deep green marble, covered with faint golden tracery that turned out to be the outlines of windows as they drew nearer. The cavern around it was big enough that the dull lights from within didn't even reach the walls, shrouding it in darkness. Warm rain pattered on the stone around them as they landed at its entrance.

Manar whistled.

"Right?" Marisa replied. "This is gonna be great!"

"So I assume we don't just knock," Manar said.

"Of course not!" Marisa managed to stop herself from slapping Manar's shoulder. She'd never really noticed how touchy-feely she was until she tried to refrain. "We're burgling, after all. The point of the game is to _avoid_ her."

"Right, right, of course," Manar said, resigned. "We have to be subtle."

"But not too subtle!" Marisa thrust two fingers into the air. "Here's rule two: you have to be brazen, too! They have to know it was you after the fact, or you'd never be able to work up a proper rivalry! If you don't give 'em someone to shake their fist at, you're just taking their shit, which, fine, but that's not what we're doing here."

"Brazen, huh? So do we…?" Manar gestured to the door with her wand.

"Good thinking, but let's see if there's an open window first."

The two took off and turned a swift double helix around the tower.

"Oh, jeez," Marisa said ruefully. She beckoned and drifted back down a few meters. "Hey, Manar, c'mere. Look. The windows are all unlocked. You wanna pick one?"

"Uh, not really." Manar shrugged helplessly and pointed to one around the middle. "Before we go in, you said she lives alone?"

"That's what the chronicle said. The lonesome satori. Pining after her sister or something."

"Kinda sad."

"Kinda." Marisa bobbed down to the window Manar indicated and broke the latch with a confident swing of her boot. "Come on in! The palace's fine!"

Manar hovered outside, conflicted, then sighed and followed her into a room that looked like it had already been picked over. The tile floor was swept clean and the walls were lined with empty bookcases. A heavy table stood in the center with nothing but a folded yellow tablecloth atop it. Even the air smelled unused. Clear panels around the edges of the floor showed the rough stone beneath the tiles, full of fine, faintly glowing veins.

"Ha, good pick, newbie," Marisa jeered, swiping the tablecloth.

Manar just shrugged.

"Oh, but look," Marisa said softly. "See those panes in the floor, there along the walls? They got little, what-you-call-'em, filaments in 'em. There's a core way down beneath us heated by magma, I bet, and it's just barely reaching us here. Neat!"

"Kind of like capillaries, huh?" Manar squinted up at them. "It's clever, but it doesn't quite… make sense. Wouldn't they lose most of their heat along the way?"

"You'll have to kick sense to the curb if you wanna make it in Gensokyo."

"You're tellin' me." Manar snorted. "What the hell, I just broke into someone's house."

Marisa smirked. "Palace."

"Palace, fine. So what now?"

"Now we find some choice loot and a good place to leave my calling card." Marisa conjured one with a flourish and handed it over. It proclaimed _Marisa Kirisame – Master Thief and Explodiatrix_ in cursive and featured a cute caricature of her winking and thrusting a hip out.

"Uh, Marisa, this has directions to your house on it."

"Well, yeah."

Manar shook her head and handed it back.

"If you take a shine to this, we can go up the mountain and get some printed for you, too!" Marisa beckoned her on. "Anyway, my impeccable burglar's instincts are telling me that we'll find some good stuff _this_ way."

And sure enough, as they descended, the sullen light from the floor panels grew brighter and the rooms they found started to look more lived-in. The furniture was modest but comfortable, the bookcases were stocked with a wide variety of genres and many of the rooms had pieces of art, mostly underground landscapes and portraits of animals. None of it was all that good, really, so Marisa stuck to interesting-looking books, occasionally swapping new ones in to save room in her pack. After a few minutes, Manar hesitantly started picking up small items and slipping them into her pack, but she handled them as though they were live eels.

"A fork? Seriously?" Marisa asked. "Come on, haven't you ever looted a place before?"

" _No!_ " Manar snapped, then dropped her voice again. "I mean yes. _Obviously._ But not a place people still live in."

"This is really getting to you, huh?" Marisa was a little peeved. Even Satsuki had made a polite effort to pretend she was having fun. "Like, a lot."

Manar sighed and put the fork back.

"But, come on, this is just a glorified game of capture the flag," Marisa said impatiently. Apart from the fact that they could be injured or even killed, but that much was obvious. "I've been telling you this whole time!"

"Did it occur to you that maybe a person who's spent their whole life scrounging in the ruins of a bombed-out civilization might not be happy in an abandoned-looking place surrounded by fire and looking for things to take? Just leave me be."

In fact, that hadn't occurred to Marisa at all. _Why'd she even let me talk her into this in the first place?_ _Damn my rugged charm!_ "I didn't know what it would look like," she muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. She couldn't even remember why she'd suggested the Palace. Warning her that they were going into an abandoned hell might've been a good idea after all…

Maybe it was her companion souring the mood, but Marisa found that she couldn't enjoy her casing very much. Something about the Palace's ambiance was putting her on edge. She even did a quick check for phantom music, but of course there was nothing like that in the air. It was far more subtle, hidden amid the tacky art and scuffed tiles. "Something's wrong," she finally said, but she couldn't find the words to explain more.

"What is it?" Manar asked, unconsciously whispering. "Are we in danger? Should we leave?"

"No, I don't think…" Marisa held up a hand and ducked into what looked like a small reading room. The answer was here. On an end table between two plush chairs, resting against a window that looked out onto utter darkness, rested a small oil portrait. Marisa picked it up and couldn't help but smile at the scene.

A girl with shockingly pink hair sat in what might have been a regal pose, but another girl in yellow was leaning on her head and flashing a victory sign. _How long did they have to hold that pose?_ Thick, fleshy veins coiled around them, blue and maroon, but they were so wound together that it was impossible to tell which was whose. The dreaded Komeiji sisters, then. The one in yellow looked familiar, somehow, but Marisa couldn't quite place her. _It's so cozy! Man, you wouldn't see Remilia putting something like this out for just anyone to… oh._

That was it.

 _This isn't like the SDM,_ Marisa realized, skin crawling. She lowered the picture and looked around the chamber, taking in the simple chairs, the tall windows, the row of bookcases, the slightly-ratty rug. Opposite the bookcases, a blue quilt covered with cute pictures of different animals stirred in a warm draft. This wasn't a space for visitors or challengers. Come to that, no humans would have come this deep in decades, maybe centuries. What adventurers would the Komeijis even have to prepare for? _This isn't like what I was telling Manar. It's not a set. It's just a home._

"Well, Commander?" Manar asked.

"Uh, so the usual trick is to pick a central place and snag something really visible," Marisa replied, setting the picture down. Well, they were already here… "But it can't be something they need to live! That's rule three. If you steal something they need to live, then you're trying to attack them without fighting them, like a blobby little _jellyfish_. Plus, I mean, it's just a dick move. If you actually want to take them down, you don't bother with any of this."

"Sure, okay," Manar said, hopping to take a quilt down from the wall and stuffing it into her pack. "There, that's something visible. What do satori need to live?"

Marisa spread her hands.

"I'm starting to hope we _do_ get caught," Manar sighed.

"Well, she lives here alone and satori sleep a lot," Marisa replied, setting her calling card on the table. "We'd have to be _hugely_ unlucky. I'll just scope out the books here and…"

"Ahem!" A tiny, delicate girl stood in the doorway, dwarfed in her billowing pink yukata. Despite her size, Satori Komeiji was far more imposing than her portrait suggested. The maroon veins coiling around her body met to form a pod in her hands, which opened into a huge, glaring eye. Its gaze pierced them each in turn, but her expression stayed drowsy and unfocused. "Who are you and what are you doing in my home?"

The rakshasa broke his long silence with a triumphant, "Yar-har- _harrrrrr_ -har-harrrr!"


	6. Satori and Mima

The adventurers all reacted differently to being found out. Marisa lit up – getting caught in a burglary was just a shift from her fourth favorite pastime to her second. Manar sank into a limber stance, shedding her frustration and tension all at once. She didn't know the first thing about burgling, but she could handle standoffs. The rakshasa just snickered silently to himself and got some astral popcorn ready.

"I see. Burglars. How novel!" Satori drummed her hands lightly on her third eye, making Marisa cringe. "And is _that_ what you think you're doing? Hum. An odd way to go about relating to youkai, especially one like me, but I suppose it's better than extermination. Hmm, yes, it's a little harder since there's three of you, but I can see into your hearts clearly. You needn't bother talking. In fact, I'd prefer if you didn't." She pointed at Marisa. "You think you're going to be cute by turning into a chatterbox now that I've said that, but kindly don't. I have to think about what to do with you. Why don't you follow me?"

Marisa opened her mouth, shut it, then shrugged uncomfortably. They found themselves following along as Satori continued their one-sided chat.

"No, Manar, I'm afraid I can't just take my things back and let you go – I have _some_ pride as a youkai, after all. And Marisa, I'm not sure I'm up for a match of… hmm… so that's how danmaku goes on the surface, these days? The forms have changed, I see. And _everyone_ does it now? How very civilized. I'd have to dust off my old technique for that… yes, yes, power da ze, very amusing, but I think you'll find your power wanting. Ah – it seems Manar expected me to already know what to do with you. Now, why is that? Here, we can continue our discussion in the main hall. It's a bit ostentatious, but it will have room for whatever I decide."

A vaulted ceiling soared over them on simple white pillars. The few clusters of high-backed chairs, low tables and planters full of colorful lichens were dwarfed in the great expanse of checkerboard tiles. One wall was lined towering windows that looked out onto more darkness. A hearth stood at the far end, filled with a block of luridly glowing filaments instead of open flames, and a row of dim chandeliers kept it from turning the whole room red. This was by far the fanciest room they'd seen, but compared to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, it was about as ostentatious as a toolshed.

"Oh, you're finally starting to wonder why you haven't already bolted?" Satori asked, giving Manar a slight smile. "It's a matter of hypnosis – no, hypnosis isn't mind control. You certainly have a strange idea of… yes, more like that. Even magical hypnosis like mine is a matter of negotiating with your subconscious. It's subtle. My suggestions have felt like the path of least resistance, haven't they? You should have opened fire immediately, but now it seems reasonable to politely listen while I natter away. You see? You two are already in my power."

Manar's wand rose with a sharp _click_ and her boots scuffed into a firing stance.

Marisa giggled. Things were looking up.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Satori said. "You're not going to attack me yet. And that isn't a suggestion; it's a fact I'm observing in your heart. Nor will you flee, as I doubt you would just leave your friend here in the bowels of the Earth. And if you decide to do either, I'll know it before you do. Hmm, that might be a bluff, yes. Maybe I _can't_ read your mind fast enough to use what I see in battle; how could you know without testing me? Such uncertainty! It's giving your thoughts an interesting texture, especially since neither of you are all that afraid. You should be, by the way."

Manar lowered her wand hesitantly.

"Should've blasted her," Marisa said, smirking. "Woulda been a fun way to kick things off. Nice and dramatic. 'You won't shoot me,' _boom!_ "

"What? But we're not fighting yet."

"We're not getting out of this without a fight. At least, I hope not!"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Danmaku with a satori, Manar! A mind-reader! Don't act like you're not looking forward to this. It's gonna be wild! And all that condescending droning – don't you want to blast her just a little?"

Manar's eyes narrowed. "I – of course not!"

Unnoticed by either, Satori pinched the bridge of her nose and turned away.

"Besides, weren't you just saying you hoped she'd catch us? Well, here we are! You know what happens next!"

"I wasn't being _serious._ "

"Aha, so you wanted a clean getaway after all!"

"A clean – what the hell, Kirisame? Weren't we supposed to be meeting a challenge? Doesn't this just make us violent intruders?"

"What a wet blanket! You really _would've_ gotten along with Alice." Bringing the dollmaker up darkened Marisa's mood for a moment, but she pushed it down and barreled ahead. "You two could start a knitting circle or whate-!"

" _Enough!_ " Satori barked, startling them. "Enough of your blather! The discord between your words and hearts is driving me to distraction! You can't even see into your _own_ thoughts – what makes you think you could ever understand each other? How absurd!"

The adventurers boggled at her.

"If you're so eager for a reckoning, then I'll make you feel remorse and terror such as you have never known!" A pink sheen spread from Satori's feet over the walls and furniture, shielding them from the coming battle. She floated into the air and spread her arms to declare an all-out spellcard duel in the archaic form. "Or rather, such that you know _all too well._ Now, sleep with a trauma that will leave you sleepless!"

Manar winced.

"Man, what?" Marisa asked, laughing. "Sleep sleeplessly? 4/10!"

"First you, I think," Satori said, turning lazily towards her. The first seal, with a design like purple vines growing through green bricks, spun into being behind her. "This should do, yes. Try to avoid my gaze, human, or you will fall more deeply into my power."

 **Discipline – The Wise Spirit and the Foolish Student**

The first bullets burst from a point just in front of Satori, a storm of dark blue crescents leaving green streaks in the air as they flew. They jackknifed irregularly, but only along their length, spreading in a pattern reminiscent of falling leaves. The cruel _snap_ of each swing made their inspiration obvious.

"Oh, so that's how we're going to be," Marisa said derisively, pointedly looking her in the eye. "That the best you can dredge up?"

"Mima was near the top of your mind," Satori replied, smiling again. She didn't seem to mind listening to them now that she could actually _do_ something about it. "Maybe something reminded you of her recently. If I really cared to go for something deep, I'd compose a spellcard about your night at the bottom of that well."

The comment surprised Marisa enough that she took a bullet across her shoulders. The pain was familiar, a hot lash that sent crackling bolts out to her toes and fingertips. She'd get a stronger blow like it whenever she failed one of her old master's tests. Or didn't succeed fast enough. Or maybe when Mima was just in a bad mood. It was a perfect attitude for running a gang of youkai and power-hungry magicians, but not so great for teaching a bright-eyed human child. She'd been too small when she started. Pliable and needy. An eager vessel.

"Deeper," Satori commanded.

A shot to the shins knocked Marisa spinning. Vividly, she remembered lying in the practice ring in a bloody heap, slowly pulling herself together. There was always some trick or spell she was expected to pick out of the pummeling, but the secondary lesson was always that she wasn't bigger than Mima yet. Once, when her teacher checked up on her after a particularly harsh lesson, Marisa had asked why they had to fight like that. She didn't even _want_ to overthrow her! _"Twerp, when I'm through with you,"_ Mima had replied, smiling bitterly, _"You will."_

"Deeper."

Another lash struck Marisa's shoulder. This would've been easier to deal with if all of the memories were bad. But without Lunasa's depressing music to color them, she could recall glowing with pride as Mima boasted about her to a haughty devil. _"Two years and she's still alive! She even has all her fingers! I tell you, me and her are gonna do great things!"_ There were also the wonderful times that other members of Mima's gang had praised her or, better, cowered from her. Exulting after successful capers, soaring above the clouds, cracking the secrets of spell after spell, carving out her underground lair and spending blissfully peaceful weeks training there…

"Deeper!"

Marisa caught a bullet just before it could fall across her eyes. Her hand convulsed and she finally let out a bark of pain – oh, the rest of the gang would've had a field day with _that_. When the time finally came, though, the best and worst day of her life, it hadn't been nearly as showy as a public lashing. After all, one of Mima's secrets to staying sane as an immortal evil spirit was knowing how to cut her losses without drama.

One day, without warning or preamble, she'd billowed up through Marisa's floor and announced, " _Kirisame, we're through. Grab your shit and get out of here._ " Marisa had reeled, fumbling reagents all over the floor, then exploded. Mima was strangely patient, floating there with an unreadable expression as Marisa panicked and pleaded ( _"Was it the miko? I can beat her! I can do it, I swear, let me try again!"_ ), transitioned to raging ( _"What do you want from me!? What do I have to do? I hate you!_ "), and then eventually just lapsed into sobbing. " _This isn't working, twerp,_ " Mima had finally said, with no venom or fury in her voice. _"We're wasting our time here, trying to make a real magician of you. Just go home, already. Go back to the humans._ "

She was free, and lost. Marisa knew in her bones that she was a creature of magic, even struggling for every bit she got. But was this dismal, cruel world the one she was born for? No – she couldn't have become the heartless raider Mima wanted any more than she could be the honest little merchant her parents had hoped for. And if the world of magic had no place for her, then there _was_ no place for her. She'd had no idea what to do with herself. She even considered going back to the village with her tail between her legs. In darker moments, she considered doing something _worse._

But then Reimu had offered her hand.

Marisa slapped her cheeks rapidly. _Ugh, wait, I'm in the middle of a match! I'm getting_ shot _at! I've gotta keep my head in the game!_

"Yes, you should," Satori agreed. She wove her hand in a quick pattern and a larger bullet formed before her, crackling with malevolent power. The others had just been rough imitations, but this was a true lash of dark magic, just like Mima had used. "But you can't. Your mind is racing, your emotions are surging – you run a maze behind your eyes even as you face my barrage. That's the beauty of my technique!"

"Not much of a show, though," Marisa pointed out, struggling to catch her breath.

"The show is for you, and no one else." She gestured to the side, where Manar was still frantically weaving through the tail end of her attack. "I'll get to your friend in a moment."

"Well it's been pretty boring so f…" Marisa's eyes widened as Satori's third eye fell on something new. The feeling of power filling her heart as ice coursed down her limbs, two voices rising as one… no. It was the one memory that Marisa really tried to keep buried – the one thing she could never forgive Mima for, or herself. If Satori really wanted to make her sleep sleeplessly, or whatever, this would be her best shot. The youkai's pink eyes met Marisa's briefly, then awkwardly drifted down as she released it.

 _All that and now you're pulling punches?_ Even through her relief, Marisa felt a bit cheated.

"Er… prepare yourself!" Satori cried, recovering quickly. The lash fell with a resounding _CRACK_ and she conjured a new one on the backswing _._ "I will drown you in your own… eh?"

Manar's experimental ward completely failed to stop or even blunt Satori's attack, but her body had. Marisa caught her shoulders to keep her from falling, then gave her a little push when she was stable. The heroic interposing dive! Now she was _doubly_ cheated. "Oh for–! Manar, the hell are you doing!?"

"Oh, the amateur," Satori said, curious but not concerned. "Congratulations on surprising me. But what do you think that accomplished?"

"Guess I wasn't thinking," Manar replied, looking surprised herself.

Marisa groaned aloud. "Oh, fuck off. Don't try to sound all cool."

"I wasn't–!"

Satori laughed and threw a smaller lash while Manar was distracted, smashing her across the chest. "Gah! It tingles!" Manar growled. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, but she was almost smiling. "God, Marisa, how many of these did you _take?_ "

"One side, twinkletoes," Marisa snapped, giving her partner a healthy push from the line of fire. "You'll get your turn when I've timed this stupid thing out. Did we pause it? We paused the spellcard, right? I don't want to miss a _moment!_ You didn't even get to the best part, yet!

"You froze! She was blasting the hell out of – okay." Manar retreated from her glare, avoiding Satori's half-hearted attack with the jerky stop-and-start of a novice flier. To her frustration, the youkai was bobbing around her attempts to catch her in a pincer without even looking. "Good luck, I guess."

"You put up a brave front, but I can see your heart, Marisa Kirisame, black-and-white, magpie, starlight berserker, _twerp,_ " Satori said. "But you can't pretend this isn't hurting you."

"If you can see my heart," Marisa replied, "You can't pretend it's stopping me!"

Satori paused and gazed down at her, absently shifting to avoid a speculative shot from Manar. Marisa grinned back and tapped her chest. Even the unforgivable memory, glittering in her shadowed depths, couldn't beat her.

Another memory rose between them, one Marisa was happy to show off: her last visit to Mima's manor, weeks after the old spirit's final experiment. _"A thief?"_ she'd asked Meira's unconscious body at her feet. _"What makes you think I want any of_ her _crap?"_ The mini-hakkero roared like she'd never heard before. Golden fire raced down the manor's empty, drafty halls and filled every gaping window. The whole place ballooned softly, as though drawing a breath, then imploded into a smoldering pile of planks. Not the exorcism she'd hoped for, but it'd felt _good_. As the mansion collapsed in their shared memory, Satori's hold over her crumbled with it.

"Of course. I picked the wrong trauma after all. I suppose all I'm doing is beating on an old scar, hmm? Or, no, you're right. Not a scar. More like… yes, a seam from welding, that's a very nice metaphor. No, your abs aren't anything like steel. I imagine this _is_ annoying, isn't it? No, I won't stop. You wouldn't ask a crocodile not to eat- _DOOF._ " She folded around a laser and dropped to her hands and knees on the tiles. "Well played."

"I'm not sure what you coulda picked," Marisa said conversationally, flipping the hakkero between her hands. The combatants drifted apart, silently agreeing to a quick breather. "I'm not the most… this isn't how you get me. It hurts, yeah, but I've got that stuff pretty squared away."

"The well," Satori said, nodding to herself. "Next time, I'll use the well. Or maybe I'll make you think you're turning into a youkai?" She popped back into the air and rounded on Manar. "And as for _you._ "

"Now, look," Manar started, lowering her wand.

"I can see every argument you're going to make," Satori said with a yawn. "And I'd rather do this."

Manar froze in the middle of replying and broke into a wry smile. "Guess, I asked for it, huh?"

"There's such a buffet of horrors in your mind! This is definitely worth a quilt to me." With a lazy swing of Satori's hand, another seal bloomed. "Enjoy."

 **Lab 32 – Souls in Purgatory**

Manar took one look at the pattern taking shape, an expanding grid of lasers, and her composure snapped. "Nope!" She backed up, shaking her head rapidly. "Noo _ooope!_ " A seal of her own burst behind her, something like an eagle, perhaps, or a stylized S. Marisa jolted in surprise; she'd been refusing to bomb out of spellcards for so long that she sometimes forgot it was an option.

 **Guerrilla** **Sign – Spread Shot**

Manar came roughly to ground and started weaving swiftly from cover to cover, spraying wide volleys of round red bullets from her wand with a curious _v-brapp v-brapp_ sound. They crashed across the hall in wave after wave, filling it from floor to ceiling and sweeping the grids away whenever they tried to form. The satori couldn't read Manar's mind to dodge because she wasn't aiming, and her counterattack was hindered by her own force fields. A solid strategy, but the execution was artless; she could have at least tried to make the barrage pretty. _Oh! This would've been the perfect time to use the Reverie! Damn it, me! Should I cut into her spell? Screw it – I'm doing it!_

 **Magic Sign – Stardust Reverie**

Marisa struck a dramatic pose and her seal burst apart into an uneven spread of bullets, cutting across the hall a few meters above Manar's head and showering the floor with sparkling dust. Individually, the bullets would barely hurt, but the volley was so dense that you could hardly hope to be hit by just one. More importantly, it turned the whole arena into a beautiful field of stars. _Now that's how you danmaku!_ Satori might have been able to work out either card individually from her opponents' knowledge, but both together had her on the run.

Now that Marisa had a moment to breathe, she noticed something unsettling about their hostess. Beyond the obvious, that is. She just seemed familiar, as if Marisa had seen someone like her not long ago. Maybe it was the whimsical way she bobbed about, or the gentle pulse of her third eye's veins, or… suddenly, it clicked. _I did see someone like her! I saw her sister on the surface just today! How could I forget that?_

Satori jerked to a stop in mid-backflip, poise shattered. "Where did you see-?" she cried, and one of the red bullets clipped her head. She twisted headfirst into a pillar with a sickening _crack_ and dropped, carried by the bullet's momentum to flop end over end until she fetched up against a coffee table and fell still. The force field vanished in a puff of air and all was silent.

After a stunned moment, Manar asked, "Is-is she okay?"

"Good shot, Manar!" Marisa crowed. "Man, I didn't even get to-"

" _Is she okay?_ " Manar dropped to the satori's side and started hunting for a pulse on her throat. "God, I can't find her – I swear, Kirisame, if I find out I brain damaged her…!"

"Alright! Jeez! Just a moment!" Setting the hakkero close to her heart, Marisa knelt and extended a few delicate tendrils into the unconscious youkai. She wasn't an expert, but, as expected, everything seemed to be in order. Now to pull the thing out again… "Yeah, she'll be fine," Marisa said, once the world came back. "She'll be out for a while, but she's just regenerating. Takes a lot more than that to brain-damage a satori. So calm the hell down, alright?"

"Okay." Manar nodded and let out a slow breath. "That's good. I just – if a human took a hit like that – can you teach me that spell some time?"

"Sure, whatever." Marisa watched her accomplice from the corner of her eye. Maybe describing the whole thing as a game had been a mistake. Maybe she wouldn't be able to help resolve incidents after all. _Damn._ "Add it to the list, I guess."

"Thanks," Manar said, putting a hand to her head. Her expression was a bit hazy; the hypnosis clearly hadn't stopped when she'd bombed out. What had she seen? "This is – this is all wrong. This isn't what was supposed to happen. Was it?"

"What's wrong with it?" Marisa tried to swallow her irritation and only half-succeeded. "We broke in, we got caught, we fought our way out. Isn't that just what I told you would happen? Seems fine to me."

"So even if they're not taking part in that game of yours, we can just bust into someone's haven and blast them?" Manar asked, disbelieving. She jerked to her feet, throwing her hands wide. "How is that-?"

Marisa suddenly snapped, surprising herself. "This is _it,_ Manar! This is danmaku! This is how humans and youkai live together! I mean, what did you expect? That we'd have a pillow fight and snuggle after?"

"I just didn't think pounding people to paste in their own homes was your idea of a good time! Satori had no idea about this game of yours! There _wasn't_ any game, we were just robbing her home and then brutalizing her when she caught us!"

"I'll pound anyone to paste wherever!" Marisa punched her open palm. She was grinning, but her eyes were hard and focused. Gauging. "Or jam or treacle or whatever! Anyone who wants a fight! And did you miss the part where she took our challenge? Where she wouldn't let us just go?"

"Well, that's great," Manar said, throwing a hand towards the pillar. "But wasn't the idea that danmaku was lighter than just fighting? That we're _not_ supposed to maim each other? We could have killed her!"

"You're so squeamish! So much for the badass wasteland warrior!"

"Squeamish?" Manar had the nerve to look dumbfounded. Her voice went cold. "Maybe I just don't see the point of a game where we go around looking for people to put in traction. You think I'm some kind of flower child? You don't know what I've done. You don't know what I _can_ do."

Marisa laughed harshly. "Really? Well, then, want to see how we used to do things?"

Manar recoiled, then took a deliberate step forward, pivoting so she was facing Marisa head on. She finally smiled back, and hers wasn't any softer. "Maybe that's what needs to happen, huh?"

Without a second thought, Marisa called the war-wizard back out. She bristled and bloomed and filled the hall with her terror. The mini-hakkero's whine rose to a shriek and then beyond hearing. Every shining wall reflected her magic circles, casting another, uglier field of stars all around them. The air tingled against their skin, tasting of copper and tangerines.

Manar looked the whole mess over and rested her wand across her shoulders with a low, insolent whistle. "Not bad, Kirisame. Real scary."

"Oh, come on," Marisa replied. "Don't even, Manar. I'd fry you before you could blink."

"Maybe I'd surprise you."

"Maybe you'd…" Marisa burst out laughing and let the spells dissolve, plunging them back into the hall's dimness. She dropped to her knees and slapped the marble floor with an open hand. "That's a good line, newbie! Aha! Ha! You come up with that yourself? 'Maybe I'd surprise you.' Who _says_ that?"

Manar let her wand fall to her side with a disgusted sigh.

"I couldn't keep it up," Marisa continued, shifting back onto her butt. She rested her elbows on her knees and smiled up at Manar. "It's just not my kinda role. _I'm_ supposed to be the underdog! We try to keep this up, and I'll forget my lines!"

"Are you…? So was that just playing around, too?"

"I wasn't going to… no. Listen, sorry. I got too emotional. It…" Marisa thought fleetingly of the picture, and the humble rooms they'd cased on their way here. _A home, not a set._ Another spike of anger forced her smile wider. "…it just used to be how my jobs went, with the old bunch. But instead of all this mushy crap we'd be fighting over the spoils. I'm not gonna fry you, Manar. I wouldn't. That was just… I don't know what that was."

Manar nodded thoughtfully, slowly but steadily relaxing. She definitely wasn't happy, but she seemed willing to let things de-escalate. "I think I get it. It felt wrong for you, too, right? You changed after whatever you saw in the quilt room, and it looked like…"

"Oh, for – I didn't _actually_ not know what it was. You're not supposed to say it out loud! And stop seeing through me, already! God, you're as bad as her!" Marisa surged back to her feet and paced past Manar, letting her frustration back out. "But shut up for a second. I need… I need to think for a moment."

A hint of concern crossed Manar's face. "Was the hypnosis worse for y-?"

"Shut _up._ For a _second._ " Marisa was still seething alongside her mirth, and she'd only just realized that it wasn't at Manar or even really Satori. It was… older. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting her anger wash through her. _Hi, there, old buddy. Been a while._ Experience it, acknowledge it and try to let it go. It had taken her years to learn this trick, and it was still incredibly hard. But she was stubborn, and it slowly eased up enough to let her focus on other things. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. I'm good." For now, at least. _Man, I almost wish Lunasa was here._ "But seriously, what do we have to feel guilty for? Youkai prey on humans, humans hunt youkai, and here we are, hunting and preyed on! Maybe she didn't know about the game, but she jumped right in."

"But she was down here all peaceful and we just came out of nowhere. She didn't deserve what we did to her." Manar winced. "Or, really, what _I_ did."

"Hey, remember when she called your brain a 'buffet of horrors?'" Marisa asked dryly, turning back. "And she went rooting around in there for the worst thing she could throw at you? I say she earned a smack to the skull from both of us."

"Lab 32 wasn't the worst by a long shot, though. It wasn't great, seeing all that again, but I know she passed over much worse. She could have hit me with something _I_ did." Manar glanced over at the satori with a bemused expression, half a smile, half a mortified grimace. "Maybe she's just out of practice. Look, back home, if I could've done that and scared intruders off, instead of shooting 'em dead, maybe I would've. Besides, we're the ones who kicked her window in; I don't think we get to squawk about how she treated us."

"You got a point there," Marisa admitted. She decided to add that to her list of rules, perhaps with a few cusses to make it catchier. "I guess she sucked at traumatizing me, too. I felt her pass up some good stuff. But anyway, you're taking this _way_ too seriously. Me, too, I guess. Loosen up, throw some elbows!"

Manar's gaze drifted to the pillar Satori had bounced from, then down to her wand. "That was 'throwing an elbow,' huh?"

"Man, how'd you ever survive that wasteland of yours?"

"I'm not in the wasteland anymore," Manar replied. "If Gensokyo will let me be gentler, I want to give it a try. And if it won't… well, what was the point of coming? It's just another wasteland, then."

"If you say so." Marisa staggered under another stab of _déjà vu_. "Oh, god _damn it_."

"What?"

"Nothing," Marisa said, running back through the encounter in her mind. "I'm not turning into her. That's not, no, this was totally different."

"Turning into who? Someone from the memory?"

"Believe it or not, _I_ used to be the one whining about who got hurt." Marisa ground the heels of her hands into her eyelids. She was too tired to get angry again. Progress? "And then my old teacher would ask if I wanted to fight her over it, and I never did because she'd make this big scary… ugh. Yeah, maybe we screwed up. Or I did, taking you here."

"Yeah, _we_ did. I agreed to come, after all."

"I promise, Manar, I didn't mean to trick you into being a common crook. I can crook commonly on my own time. I just… didn't think about what it'd mean to be isolated down here. That she wouldn't know about any of the new – not rules, but like things everyone knows you're supposed to do?"

Manar nodded. "Mores."

"Sure. Those things. Eels. I just thought the Palace was the same kinda thing as the SDM. Just a big green middle finger at the surface."

While Manar considered this, it suddenly hit Marisa how quiet it was down there, blocked off from the constant wind and pattering rain. She could hear her own heartbeat, and the soft rasp of Satori's breath was deafening. Down in the wet darkness, with the earth crushing in from every direction… she involuntarily thought of the well and shivered.

"I believe you," Manar finally said. "And really, I can't blame you for what _I_ did, can I?"

"Nope, that's on you." Marisa's smile became a few degrees more genuine. "But I'm gonna go ahead and blame Satori for us almost fighting."

"That's fair."

"And here, if you're still feeling bad, tell you what I'll do." A flip of Marisa's hand conjured not the mini-hakkero, but a bright red slip of paper and a pen. She scribbled " _footpath outside Human Village, she seemed happy_ " on the back and knelt to set it on Satori's chest. "This should smooth everything over."

Manar gave a sharp laugh. "Whatever that is, it must be pretty great."

"It's an invitation to Reimu's New Year's party. Just this big mess of humans and youkai and weirdos from all over, best time you'll ever have. Oh, yeah, you're invited, too. Anyway, every year Reimu hands me like fifty to give out to people I like." Marisa nudged the satori lightly with her foot. "Or I guess if they look interesting. Maybe she'd stir things up a little? I wonder if she'll take the bait."

"Do you think she will?"

"Dunno. She'd have to break the treaty, which… I don't know how bad it'd be. But it's her call, right?"

"Right." Manar considered this. "And so now we just… leave with her stuff?"

"Well we obviously can't _now,_ " Marisa said. She set her pack on the ground and started stacking the books on the coffee table. "Rule 4, last but not least! If you get caught and beat them, you don't get to keep what you took. Fighting her turned this into a mugging, and what are you, a pleb? You can't mix your assault and your robbery!"

"I, um. Do you have rules for assault, too?"

"Nah, I prefer to wing it."

"Oh." Manar's mood seemed to improve a bit as they set about putting things back. She emptied her pack onto an easy chair and arrayed her haul next to Marisa's books; she'd passed up the objects d'art and scattered valuables for small, useful items like cutlery and tools. Their mark probably wouldn't have noticed the theft for weeks, if at all. Pretty bad form. Finally, she lifted the wadded quilt, turned in a quick circle to search the walls for a spot, and then spread it over the unconscious satori.

"Aw, you really are the nice kind of cat burglar," Marisa said, snickering.

Manar frowned at her.

"Oh, you lose your last dregs of shame after the third or fourth time, 'long as no bleeding-heart newbies mess it up for you." Marisa cheerfully worked through the silence that followed. She could feel her partner chewing that over, and was enjoying the suspense over what she'd make of it.

Manar just changed the subject. "Do you think we'll have to fight anyone else to get out?"

"Doubt it! She strikes me as a weirdo loner type," Marisa said, striding for the front door. "Bet she's a figure of dread down here and everyone avoids the place. Even devils can't stand someone who can always see into their hearts."

"Wait, let me do a detection spell, first," Manar said, fumbling with the plates in her wand again. "A lot of the rooms further up looked like she might keep…"

Marisa booted the front door open, sending a narrow spear of light out into the cavernous darkness beyond. Dozens of eyes glimmered around it and a low rumble rose, somewhere between a growl and a rockslide. Only one figure came into the light: a woman, tall and long haired, majestic wings spreading behind her and eyes blazing red-and-orange from within. Her expression was stone. As she approached with slow, measured steps, steam rose from her body and the moist stones hissed beneath her bare feet.

"…pets." Manar finished. "For _God's sake._ "

"Hey, a hell raven! Hi, there!" Marisa called, trying for a winning smile. _Quick! Think of an ice-breaker!_ "Is it true, what they say about your third-?"

Klaxons blared, a menagerie of terrible youkai roared and the cavern was lit by a storm of bullets.

* * *

"So I guess she's popular with animals," Marisa admitted. " _Ow!_ Careful!"

They'd finally come to rest a kilometer or so downriver of Thunderdome, sheltered in the lee of a rocky hillock. They were down to their shirtsleeves and Manar's first aid kit was strewn about them like a picnic set, along with a selection of dubious salves and oils from Marisa's apron. Overhead, the first stars were just coming out.

"If we're radioactive now," Manar said levelly, carefully bandaging her accomplice's arm. "I'm going to strangle you."

"Ooh, that would suck. What would we even do?"

"I know someone who'd be able to help decontaminate us. But it wouldn't matter to you, because I'd _strangle you first._ "

Manar continued to fume while they traded places and Marisa broke out her burn salve. The witch tried to keep her touch light and professional as she applied it, fingers practically glowing in the moonlight against Manar's dark arm. "You're really taking this seriously," she observed. If she'd known that radioactivity were a risk, she definitely would have gone with the poltergeist mansion. "Didn't we just talk about this?"

"I couldn't believe you! I almost shot you in the back and ran for it!"

"With a danmaku bullet, though, right?" Marisa asked, smirking.

"No, I was gonna murder you," Manar snapped. "What do you take me for, woman?"

Marisa got the sense that it was maybe time to stop tweaking her. She kind of wished she could stop smiling, but she was still riding the adrenalin high. Instead, she offered a mushroom nutrition bar, which Manar seized and wolfed down without a pause for breath. She didn't seem to notice how disgusting it was.

"Look! Look. That – none of that made _any_ sense. Nothing we did, nothing that they did, _nothing_. What were the stakes, even? What would they have done if they'd caught us?"

Marisa blinked. "Good question. I dunno."

"I'm pretty sure I heard one of them yelling 'I get the corpses,' but you said…"

"Yeah, it was still danmaku. They were probably just excited."

"I'm no stranger to running from monsters. I spent my whole life fighting for my – life." Manar stood and walked a few paces away, shrugging her duster back on. "But _this_ was new. I didn't know what I was fighting for or what my opponents wanted. And none of you even know, either!"

"Guess this is what you'd call culture shock," Marisa said sagely.

"And you do this all the time?"

"'Bout monthly, I'd say. A little less."

"But you'd pick them all clean! Especially since you don't rob the villagers. How many burgle-worthy mansions can there possibly be in Gensokyo?"

"You'd be _amazed_ by how many mansions are around here! Can't shoot an all-range death ray without hitting at least two." Marisa's face went slack for a moment and she moved her hand in a few long, sweeping lines. "Wait, actually, you could."

"Are all-range death rays a thing?"

"In theory!" Marisa said brightly.

Manar stared, mouthing "all-range dea…" before bursting out, " _Why_ do you have that theory?"

"Gonna carve my name in the moon. Or maybe a big dick."

"God, you're weird."

Marisa doubled over laughing. She rocked on her hips, basking in Manar's glower, and slowly faded down to giggles. "Y'know," she finally managed. "Technically, since you're here, _you're_ the weird one."

"I…" Manar started, then trailed off with a thoughtful expression. Just as she had in the city, she seemed to shrug her emotions off. It seemed to be having a question to ponder that did it. "Yeah, that's a point. Guess I shouldn't be so ethnocentric until I figure some of this out. I'll just take some time to watch and think, huh?"

"Oh, come on. You made that word up."

Manar shook her head. "It's a hard word to explain if you don't know it. I'm sure you do something that's _like_ thinking, anyway."

"Ha, nice."

"So, okay, Teacher… my takeaway's supposed to be that all this kind of stuff is just normal and copacetic? The conflict between human and youkai here's just this kind of big old brutal game and there's no hard feelings?"

"Sort of, yeah," Marisa said. "I mean, the hard feelings are part of the game. We're supposed to be terrified, they're supposed to be vengeful, and that's how everyone stays happy. Sort of. I guess the main thing is that we forgive fast. You run eleven-thousand kinds of creepy monsters together with a bunch of assholes, and you pretty much have to."

Manar nodded thoughtfully. "Kind of cosmopolitan, but… ah, monstrous?"

"So like just before you all came, this crazy ghost princess just tried to steal Spring – woulda wiped out the village if she'd managed it. But then we beat her up and had tea with her and now she's coming to the New Years' party. Or just the other day I accidentally-on-purpose sicced an interdimensional pirate captain on Reimu, and the first time we meet after, she wants to have a sleepover. Or, haha, how about a cranky satori barfing our own trauma in our faces, and then we end up feeling all bad about punching back?" Marisa blinked. _Come to think of it, we're all nuts._

Manar's expression suggested that she agreed.

"So you won't want to come along on my next job? I'm robbing Yukari's place next! I think I figured out how to do those barriers, and I wanna give it a try."

"Yeah, I think I'll pass. It's not my kind of thing." Manar trailed off and turned her gaze groundward. An all-range death-ray shooting from her face would have missed the palace, but it was clear where her thoughts had gone. "You think she's okay?"

Marisa shrugged carelessly. "She's probably up and about and forgotten all about it already. Live as long as she has, and jackasses like us are a dime a dozen." She brightened. "If you want, I can leave an apology card next time I break in!"

Manar snorted. "Okay, that's enough culture shock for today. I think I'll go do something that's not criminal. Or maybe sleep for a month."

"Not a crime~!" Marisa reminded her in sing-song.

"Right, right, right." Manar said, waving dismissively. "Can't have a crime when there's no law against it. Unless we go with a Durkheimian definition of crime."

"Haha, what?"

"Eh, boring dead white guy," Manar said. She drew a deep breath and let it out. "Anyway, thanks for showing me the ropes today. I guess. I learned a lot, and I'm still really happy about the city. If you're up for it, I'd like to go exploring with you again sometime, just, uh, let's not break into anyone's house and pummel them into unconsciousness, alright?"

"Yeah, let's do some more of the other stuff. Maybe finally have that duel of ours." Marisa caught herself before she went for a shoulder slap and they shared a smile. "I'm learning!"

Taking her leave, Manar hopped and wobbled in the air, then turned her landing into a bounce that carried her over the treetops. Not as graceful as she'd been in the underground, but pretty good for a newcomer. Marisa glanced down at her broom with a sigh and then took flight herself.

* * *

 _(Satori's spell cards in this chapter were the Easy/Normal mode versions. In Hard/Lunatic, they would be_ **Discipline – The Furious Spirit and the Worthless Student** _, and_ **Lab 32 – Tartarus** _.)_


	7. Marisa

Marisa was finally starting to notice what a mess she was. With no newbie to impress, she realized that her four high-impact danmaku matches and two war wizard invocations had left her feeling like a blob of ground beef stuffed into a witch-shaped sack. With no opponent to defy, all the memories Satori had dredged up were useless and yet wouldn't go away. It was a bad combination; flying alone on quiet nights often made her mind wander to dark places, and being in constant pain was making it harder to focus on anything else.

 _Really, Mari? Really?_ Reluctantly, she changed course for the Hakurei Shrine. It'd be nice to have another human around for a little longer. _I should be_ through _this, already!_

Satori wasn't the first opponent to try and use Marisa's apprenticeship against her. Sometimes it seemed like every third youkai was some kind of amateur psychologist, and her time in the evil spirit's crew wasn't exactly secret. But while Satori had come the closest, they all misunderstood just what Mima had done to hurt her and how she'd overcome it. The dollar-store Hannibal Lecters thought that they could shake her by pointing out how cowed and beaten she'd been, or suggesting that she was just Mima-lite, or even just insulting her in ways that Mima had. They all completely missed the worst part.

The worst part was that Mima had loved her and wanted the best for her. It was just that her love was poison and the "best" she wanted was for Marisa to be a hardy, ferocious beast that could survive Gensokyo as she saw it. This fact worked a strange alchemy, turning self-defense into ungratefulness, cruelty into affection, basic considerations into priceless gifts. It bound the prospect of escape to the feeling of giving up something irreplaceable – of being alone in a terrifying wilderness without her master's protection.

Really, as a trap laid by an evil spirit for a child who'd run away to the Forest of Magic, it was disappointingly mundane.

"Goddamn mind readers," Marisa muttered, massaging her temples. Being reminded of those days had long ago stopped making them rush back, but having a youkai reach psychic tendrils into her and pull them out for a look was something else. If only Satori _had_ cracked the forbidden memory open; at least then Marisa could have taken it out on her! Now she had to deal with it without having anyone to blast.

It wasn't a simple bad memory. In fact, in a weird way, Mima had been showing her kindness. One night, as if to make up for the banality of her trap, she'd offered a way out that was more bizarre and horrible than anything Marisa could have come up with. She'd _almost_ taken it. If she could somehow go back in time, she'd have to agonize over the choice all over again. How could she still be nostalgic for that night, despite everything else?

Marisa veered away from the shrine and arced high into the night sky. No need to let Reimu see her like this. She knew her friend would understand, but that wasn't the _point._ She didn't really know what the point was, but it wasn't that. She just wanted to smooth herself out before seeing anyone, and her mind wouldn't stop trying to race back to that stupid buried memory. It was an opponent in her own heart, and she couldn't resist the pull of going another round with it. After a few minutes circling over the barren woods, she landed in the upper branches of a tree and got into the ring.

* * *

 _The magician made a three-point landing on the upper balcony of her manor, driving cracks through the stone tiles. The malevolent power thrumming in her aura was all out of proportion to her tiny, gangly body. It slowly dimmed as she stood with a satisfied sigh, tossed her bag of loot aside and turned back to look over her domain. Gensokyo's moon shone silver in the east and the orange moon of Makai glared over the western horizon. Reimaden's sky was an uneasy blend of the two, deep brown and midnight blue swirling together above thick black clouds with a twist of rosy miasma. The manor stood alone in a forest of Earthly and Makai trees growing at strange angles, following the invisible boundaries between their home planes._

 _She felt amazing. Her raid had been a huge success, but the haul was incidental; it was all for the experience! Her senses were razor sharp and her body surged with power. None of the guards could touch her. None of the defenses had even slowed her. Spells had flown from her hands and heart without an instant of thought or fear._ _She was invincible! Godlike! But, sadly, she couldn't stay this way. Bidding herself a fond farewell, she reached deep within and released the spells that held her together._

 _She instantly regretted it. A gout of deep blue smoke burst out with her cry of pain and she slowly crumpled as more and more poured from her body. For a confused moment she was caught between the feeling of being cut free and being hollowed out, and then she was gone._

 _The smoke coiled and smoothed into dark robes and flowing green hair. Pulling the tip of her ghostly tail free, Mima grimaced down at her student. "Ugh. That was me?" She let a gust of wind carry her a few feet away. "I forgot how disgusting having a body is. Just that…_ film _of salty ick oozing out of every inch of us. The smell of it! Urgh!"_

 _Marisa knew she shouldn't be ashamed of sweating after an ordeal like that – or at all – but found herself cringing anyway. Mima's barbs had a way of slipping under her armor._

 _Mima chuckled. "Well, despite all that, the job went well. Glad you agreed to this?"_

 _Marisa sat up and raised her hands to her chest. She couldn't quite get a grip on what had happened to her. She felt sick and empty, but at the same time… better? Her hands were shaking, but they were hers again. But they had been before, hadn't they? She couldn't figure out if her euphoria was because of the experience or because it was over. "Yuh," she mumbled._

 _Mima dissolved and reformed sitting on the balustrade above Marisa. She flipped her hand, conjuring her staff with a casual spell Marisa_ still _couldn't get the hang of. "I'll count out the spoils later. For now, we have something more important to talk about."_

 _Marisa looked up at her in confusion._

 _"It's not just the job that went well. This was also a test, remember? I didn't think you could handle possession, but you took to it like a champ! So, if this works for both of us, we could make it a permanent arrangement."_

 _Marisa's heart soared with both excitement and fear, leaving her jumbled-up head far behind. She could feel like that_ all the time? _"Wh-why?"_

 _"Because, believe it or not, I don't want to piss away all the work I put into your training. Now, don't get me wrong – you're one tough little bitch." She paused to let Marisa giggle. "But you're just a human, and you don't even have armor like Rika. Sooner or later, you're going to get eaten up by some youkai. No matter how quick you are, twerp, this world's no place for you."_

 _That snapped her back into the moment. "It's the only place for me."_

 _"Well, here's your chance to prove it." Mima tapped her staff on the stone tiles, raising a soft C#. "Possession isn't a matter of slipping in there and taking over – I need a willing, trained host who can join with me. You felt it, didn't you? We either blend perfectly or we die together. If we pull it off, you get my knowledge, power and confidence, while I get your body and… I don't know, spunk."_

 _The idea was so daunting that Marisa didn't even notice the opportunity for a double entendre. "But…" she said uncertainly. "Would I still be… me?"_

 _"Be honest, twerp. Is 'you' really someone you want to keep being? But I know how important that is to you humans, for… whatever reason." Mima snickered. "It'd be nice if you could ask your predecessors how it turned out. In a way, you are – because I'm telling you! I am Mima, and Chiaki, and Estelle. If you say yes, I can be Marisa, too."_

 _Marisa swallowed._

 _"So, for once, I'm leaving the choice up to you. Will you join with me and become the greatest magician Gensokyo has ever seen? Or will you stay a soggy little strip of meat and struggle along until one of our marks finally swats you?"_

 _She had to decide now? Marisa could only stare. Both options were more horrible than she could possibly imagine! Also, she just couldn't believe that Mima would put a choice before her without laying a trap._

 _"And take your time. Believe me, I'd push you if I could, but I can't. If I coerce you into hosting me, and you're not all in, it'll be the end of us both." Mima became a coil of smoke again and reformed on the other end of the balcony, gripping the rail. "For now, just rest up, I guess. You did good today. Whether or not you let me in, I want you to keep it up."_

 _Marisa smiled tentatively. Something deep inside of her unknotted a little bit and she sagged, resting her elbow on the stone. It didn't do to relax around Mima, but she'd take any excuse to let off some of the constant tension. She'd done fine. Mima was happy. It would be alright. Right? They rested peacefully under the twin moons, and her thoughts started to fall into order._

 _"I'm having a hard time remembering how we did the thing with the chain lightning," Mima suddenly said. "Where it was jumping around between all those assholes, but it didn't get us? That must be something we made together."_

 _"How bad do you think we hurt them, anyway?" Marisa asked musingly. "Did-" She didn't see the lash coming, but it didn't surprise her. Once, the flash of pain would have brought her to full alert, frantically looking for any way to head off the coming barrage. Now, though, she just went blank and waited, slowly pushing herself back up._

 _"Marisa," Mima said calmly, forming another lash. "Tell me what you did wrong."_

 _"I felt sorry for a mark," Marisa monotoned. That's what she got for relaxing. Stupid._

 _"And why is that wrong, Marisa?"_

 _"Because," Marisa drew a slow breath. Her heart was starting to slow down again. "Because if I do that in a job, I'll mess it up."_

 _"That's right." The lash dissolved. Mima really_ was _in a good mood. "When you make someone your mark, they stop being a person. What's a gazelle to a lion? The world will grind you up if you worry about every little schlub you run across. Fuck the world, twerp. Take what you want and burn the rest."_

 _Marisa nodded mutely. She had no idea what a gazelle was. It would be years before she learned the joys of metaphors using large African land mammals._

 _"Atta girl." Mima moved to pat her shoulder, but stopped before touching her. "Eugh. Now go wash up, would you? Good lord, the whole manor's going to stink."_

 _Marisa nodded and clomped in, discovering that the drafty halls were even colder than the night outside. She took to the air once she was out of sight; the place was full of exposed nails and rotten floorboards that Mima had no reason to worry about. The fastest way to her basin would be through the common room, which could be dangerous this time of night. She almost detoured, but a weary, half-felt surge of pique steered her down the rickety stairs towards its light and warmth. This was her home too, damn it!_

 _Only two members of the crew were in that day. Rika, a tall, bespectacled woman in a grubby labcoat, was playing cards with an impossibly willowy, 3-meter-tall Nephilim. He towered over his end of the table, luxurious purple locks pooling on its surface and winding among the stacks of chips. His feathery wings arced around the edges of the room, giving off soft bluish light that seemed to eat the fire's warmth. Like most people from Makai, he was cagey when it came to his name. They'd just taken to calling him "Matenshi."_

 _"Oh, it's the favorite! Come here for a moment!" Rika called as she passed. "Hey! Kirisame!"_

 _Marisa finally stopped. "What do you want, Rika?"_

 _"I have some questions for you, on behalf of the crew." Rika strode up confidently and slipped a small box from the pocket of her lab coat. It looked like the "Taser" she'd been showing off the other day, but now malevolent green bolts crackled between its prongs. All Marisa could guess about it was that it probably wasn't lethal. Mima forbade them from killing each other, but didn't worry much about what else they might inflict._

 _Behind Rika, Matenshi peeked at her cards and hurriedly changed his bet._

 _"Well?" Marisa asked bluntly._

 _"You could say that we're jealous of the expeditions Mima takes you on – you've hit some lucrative targets and left the rest of us out in the cold. I, for one, am getting a little irritated, Kirisame. Do you think Chobham armor is cheap to make?" If Rika was trying to intimidate Marisa with her height, it wasn't working. If she was trying to intimidate with her figure, it was, a little._ _"So, spill. Just how much are you making from these ventures? And how did_ you _worm your way into joining her on them?"_

 _"Maybe you should take it up with Mima."_

 _Rika flinched, then gritted her teeth. "I'd rather have this out with you. Here. Now."_

 _"_ You're _challenging_ me? _" Marisa asked blankly._

 _"Obviously."_

 _"But – how? Did you somehow get a tank in here?"_

 _Matenshi's light dimmed and he let out a long, low, "Ooooh!" Marisa groaned inwardly; she hadn't even intended it as an insult._

 _"Clever," Rika snarled. "Almost as clever as-"_

 _Marisa deflected the Taser thrust with a sweep of her forearm and grabbed Rika's face. Power boiled up in her chest and surged down her arm, far too little for a satisfying laser, but more than enough at this range. Rika would hit the floor before Matenshi could even finish yelling "NERD FIGHT!"_

* * *

Marisa scowled. She couldn't even enjoy the memory of zapping Rika anymore. Mima had kept control of her volatile, selfish "crew" by playing them against each other, so she'd just been acting as her master's unwitting legbreaker. She wondered what Rika was up to these days, and how she was managing. The engineer hadn't joined as a child, at least, but they'd all been in a bad place back then.

Mima's offer that night had torn Marisa neatly in two. She'd suffered for days after, unable to sleep or keep any food down, fumbling every exercise, desperately ping-ponging between two equally terrifying futures. It was the chance to get everything she ever wanted, in return for precious things she hadn't even known she could lose. Become that mighty magician forever, or _never again?_ She was proud of her humanity, but wouldn't she be prouder of the strength her master would give her? Could she forgive herself if she let Mima consume her? Could she forgive herself if she _didn't?_

In the end, Mima finally rescinded the offer. _"If you fall apart_ that _easily, you're no good as a vessel. Let's toughen you up!"_ The spirit claimed she wasn't upset, but the painful metal orbs she used in that night's reflex training suggested otherwise. As did leaving Marisa out of the next four jobs. That was just how Mima worked; you were always playing a game and only she knew the rules.

Marisa probably would have said "no" in the end. Probably. And yet… to feel that supreme confidence again. That unrestrained power. The vicious joy in being herself, her very existence proof that she had defeated the world! The thought of it still made her shiver. Offering herself up would have been worth it. Every time she was reminded of it, she had to face what she'd given up.

Of course, Mima was fine either way.

Marisa swiped at angry tears. _That's_ what really killed her. The imbalance. The grand effort that had defined her whole life was just a failed project. Mima had been free to go on to new things while her former student pathetically chased scraps of what she could have been. She'd been crumpled and warped into the shape her master wanted, and then carelessly tossed aside.

Unforgivable.

And worse… in the years since her old master was devoured by the Master Spark, Marisa had never quite worked out how to feel about it – maybe freed, maybe sad? A dash of schadenfreude might be nice. Or maybe she simply shouldn't care. But would an embodied Mima have survived her final experiment? Would mixing Marisa into her have given her that last bit of verve, or focus, or power she needed to see it through? Would the two (or four) of them be striding the cosmos as a Master Spark fueled titan even now? It was ridiculous that she even had to think about it.

Unforgivable!

"Yarr?" the rakshasa asked nervously.

" _Shut up,_ " Marisa snapped. "You brought Satori down on us. _You_ brought this back! God damn it, I'm _crying._ I should toss you in the lake!"

Thinking about it never helped. She took off like a rocket, up and up until her head swam in the thin air and her fingers went numb with cold, and finally, far beyond the sight of Gensokyo, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Colorful stars burst all around her and flickered out as they tumbled away. Arcs of lightning leapt from her body and danced through the pale clouds. She howled curses at passing birds and flipped off every sign of civilization she could see with hands of flame. The Master Spark ripped out in beams that would look like glistening lengths of spider silk from the ground. She kept it up until she wasn't crying anymore and then finally flopped in the air, gasping for breath.

Marisa hadn't had a good rage like that in years. Though maybe "good" was the wrong way to put it. They never really helped; she just had to get them out of the way.

Her real relief had come in dribs and drabs over the years, as she slowly rediscovered who "Marisa" was. It sometimes seemed like an endless task, but each step had its own rewards. Proving she didn't need Mima to learn about magic, or anything else. Figuring out what things set her off and how to manage her anger. Learning to trust again, and _who_ to trust. Even morning meditation, much as she'd scoffed, really helped! And while there was no one moment of epiphany, Marisa eventually came to an important understanding.

She'd been right to think that Gensokyo had no place for her… and that was okay. She was carving one out for herself. Marisa drifted on her back and gazed up at the stars through the plumes of her breath, tears slowly drying from her temples. It didn't matter what Mima had tried to make of her, or what some bumpkins from the village thought, or what arcane rules for humans and youkai Yukari had noodled out when she founded Gensokyo. Why pine after the magician she might have become? She was building a better one! Her pride as a human explodiatrix and the joy she took from her exploits and the peace she felt with friends and lovers weren't some façade for a broken, insecure girl – they were the real Marisa.

It really was as plain as day. She just had to remind herself now and again.

"I'm going back to the shrine," Marisa said, once her voice came back. "Then we'll head home and I'll get you settled in. And also, I wanna apologize."

"Yar?"

"I wouldn't throw you into the lake. I was blaming you for spitting misfortune my way, but I took you along knowing you'd do it. And you didn't even know what she'd be able to do to me! I just… especially if we're gonna be talking about maybe making you a familiar, I can't be treating you like that, threatening you when you're helpless. I gotta be… I gotta be better."

"Yo ho!" the rakshasa cried.

"But can you keep quiet in there? Because the pirate noises are getting obnoxious."

The rakshasa silently pulsed an affirmative.

"See? That's a lot nicer." Marisa rolled over and dove.

* * *

Reimu wasn't home when Marisa touched down on the shrine steps. She fleetingly thought to strike out and see if her friend needed help, but the idea almost made her keel over on the spot. Instead, she let herself in and put some tea on, then sat on the deck and looked up at the stars. Had anyone seen her lightshow way up there? What would they make of it? The thought of having spectators for her meltdown made her giggle uncomfortably. _That musta been why Satori didn't use the memory,_ she realized. _She wouldn't just be watching me freak out; she'd have to_ feel _it, too._

After a few minutes, Marisa rose and started pacing up and down the shrine's deck, forgetting about the tea in her hands. Despite the worries still spinning in the back of her mind, she felt a lot more like herself. She really was in a good place lately, when phantom musicians and psychic youkai weren't punching her in the brain. _Man, I just wanna take my lumps and get on with things. Why do they gotta keep dredging up the same old lumps to lump me with?_

Her expression grew determined. _I have to figure out how to stop them. Satori and the Prismrivers and even Mysti._ She had some theories on how to shield her heart, but no idea if they would actually work. She'd have to test them. The prospect was scary in a way that getting blown up by Yuka could never be. _But I can't keep letting them doing this to me! At this rate, they'll destroy me even if I kick their asses every single time. And even if I do pull through, if youkai keep reaching inside of me and changing me around…_

So, now she had a project to work on. Good. Or maybe she'd just follow Manar's lead and sleep for a month.

"Hello, again," Reimu said idly, drifting down over the arch to land next to her. "Did you make enough of that for me?"

"Yup." Marisa waved into the shrine. "What's got you faffing around so late?"

"Oh, Kosuzu got into another demonic scroll," Reimu said. "Made a real mess, but I sorted it out."

"Awfully casual, there."

"I should be furious, but she's so damn cute."

"She is that, yeah," Marisa agreed, and resumed pacing.

Reimu sat down and poured herself some tea, watching her friend for a time. A flight of crows passed overhead, croaking merrily. "This is getting nerve-racking. If you can't settle down, can you at least tell me what's on your mind?"

"Ahh, the thing with Manar went alright, but she got kinda shaken up after our big danmaku match. She was all scared she'd hurt our opponent, and then she got mad at me for dragging her down there. That's the thing with newbies – I mean, what we have here in Gensokyo is pretty weird when you think about it, yeah? I'd forgotten."

"Made you feel bad, huh?"

"Yeah." Marisa wouldn't have admitted this to anyone else in Gensokyo. "A little."

"Mm. I worried something like that would happen. The way we keep peace with youkai is kind of inhuman – but that's the point. They're _not_ human. I'd have thought someone like her would know all about necessary violence."

"She does. Better n' me, I think. I bet that's why she's so, uh, rattled," Marisa said, leaning against the doorframe. "After where she came from, this place basically looks like Candyland to her, you know? Makes it surprising when we start beating the shit out of each other."

"So maybe you were the right person to guide her." Reimu took a long sip, eyes smiling through the steam. "It's just such a shock when a little cutie-pie like you lasers someone to a crisp. You could be a, what you call it, allegory."

Marisa snorted.

"She'll come around," Reimu said, then chuckled. "Or, who knows, maybe we will."

"I invited Satori the satori to your New Year's bash, by the way. She'd have to break the treaty to come, so I don't know what you'll have to do if she does."

"That'll be fine." Reimu took another long sip.

"Huh. I thought you'd be pissed."

"I trust you. I absolutely shouldn't, but I do. Whatever she does, we'll work it out."

"Okay, good." More crows flapped by. Or maybe the same crows. Were they stuck within the Border? It'd never occurred to Marisa to wonder. "But is it really necessary? Us going around and fighting youkai who aren't even doing much of anything? Like, you know, when there's an incident and we just fly out and start busting heads? She's got me wondering, now. What about, say, Mystia? When do we ever have to beat _her_ up?"

"I don't know. Not too often. But if there's another big, blatant incident like the scarlet mist, she'll probably get riled up and start attacking humans, too. The youkai here can't resist displays like that."

"Oh, come on, really?"

"Let's make a bet. If the next incident is something you can see from anywhere in Gensokyo, Mystia Lorelei will get excited and ambush one of us. I'll bet you… say, 2000 yen to spend at Kourindou however you want against one of your hats?"

"You're on." They both slapped their hands in an approximation of the "duel accepted" gesture. Marisa turned back to the stars, then straightened as the realization hit her. "Oh, _shit._ You're just going to wait for the next incident and then go and hassle her, aren't you?"

"That's a risk you're taking, yes."

Marisa sighed. "And people say _I'm_ the shifty one."

"I learned from the best," Reimu said demurely. "But seriously, I won't have to do that. Mark my words – Mystia will find us."

"Heh. I'll be watching you, Hakurei."

"Anyway, you wouldn't be bothering me in the middle of the night over the ethics of danmaku. So, out with it."

For a few seconds, they just listened to the squabbling birds.

"So, uh, I'm still basically human," Marisa finally said, with just a little bit of a question mark.

"Basically," Reimu agreed. She cleared her table in a long, floating hop and joined her friend. "If, say, shikaisen are still human, then you definitely are."

"I figured," Marisa said casually. "I just wanted to hear it from an expert."

"What's got you thinking about it?"

"I dunno." Marisa stretched and the aches she'd racked up over the course of her adventure flared and shifted satisfyingly. The next morning was going to be horrible. "Everyone's been acting weird around me lately. Weirder than usual. It's like there's something on my face everyone else can see."

Reimu gave her a once over, not even blinking at the horrible bruises on her cheek and forehead. "Just the usual."

"You know, before we fought, Yuka called me a liminal creature."

"She's just trying to get under your skin."

"I kinda like it." Marisa held her hands out towards the moon, curled them up and flexed. Reimu raised her eyebrows at the sight. "A liminal creature. Meat and magic. A human who lives like a youkai. Gets along with both, mostly. Any kind of incident, I can deal with both sides. Any kind of sinister impurity, I run right out and roll around in it."

"Except for shit," Reimu pointed out mildly. "Or corpses."

Marisa shuddered. "Except for… _of course._ I mean just like magic stuff."

"If you're a liminal creature, I wonder what that makes me."

"Hmm. The line? The Terminal Miko?"

Reimu half-smiled. Icy night wind rushed over them but didn't touch her, somehow.

"I keep expecting you to get on my case about this stuff," Marisa continued, ignoring the incidental eeriness. "Wasn't so long ago that you'd have to do me in if I became a youkai. You wouldn't do that, though, right?"

"Well, Gensokyo's changed since then. I think we should've expected weirdos like you," Reimu replied. She thought for a moment, then added, "When everyone set out to make a way for humans and youkai to share the same world, neither fading, we always assumed that youkai would be the ones who'd have to change. I'm starting to wonder."

Marisa turned to her, wide-eyed. "Okay, I just wanna say, I love me, but a whole world full of Marisas would _not_ work _at all._ "

That got a laugh. "We don't all have to change the same way. I can't wait to see what everyone does, especially with that new village around." Reimu gave her a sideways glance. "I shouldn't be the one to ask this, but do you ever think about making the jump to magician youkai?"

"What? No. Never. It's, uh, after the chance I gave up when I made the choice to be human…" _Eh, close enough._ "If I became some kind of youkai _now_ , it'd be a waste."

"I see." Was there a hint of relief in Reimu's expression? It was hard to tell. "You look beat, by the way."

"Yeah, I'm about to collapse."

"Want to stay over?" Reimu offered. "We could swap those war stories."

Sorely tempting, but… "Nah, I'd better head back. The wards on my place get weaker when I rest my head other places, and I shouldn't let 'em fade before Mr. Rakshasa here settles in."

"Some other time, then."

"And hey, Reimu." Marisa paused, unsure of how to get it out. She finally settled on going in for a hug and muttering, "Needed that."

"Sure, sure."

As she stepped down and her friend retreated indoors, Marisa was stopped by a sudden chill. Maybe she'd just been too consumed with thoughts of old times, but she could _swear_ that she smelled a familiar perfume on the breeze. Magic pulsed through her body, a sinister presence drifting by invisibly. For a moment, she felt small and bewildered.

Reimu said something in the room behind her and she turned back, but froze when the air buzzed in response. It wasn't a voice, but it had the cadence of speech. Hovering outside the door, Marisa distinctly heard Reimu say, "You're wrong about her." She hesitated, harboring a dark suspicion as that mysterious buzz argued back… but then her anger melted into relief, and then cold, scornful pleasure. _If that's who I think it is, then_ she's _avoiding_ me!

Not unaffected after all, then. Marisa laughed scathingly and took flight.

* * *

"Should probably keep you out of sight and away from any of the firing arcs," Marisa said, carefully picking her way through the mayhem of her house. There were lots of little nooks and crannies in the piles of junk, but nothing seemed quite secure enough, particularly when you considered blast radii. "Once you're in place, you should be able to reach out and feel the wards and stuff I put around here, get the lay of the land. Maybe sometime I can work out a holographic spell or something so you can run around screaming 'Urameshiya' at people, too."

He seemed to like that idea.

"Okay, here we go," Marisa finally said, pausing over the kitchen's non-functional sink. This was pretty close to the center of her ward spells, and the cast-iron pipes would interfere with a lot of detection magic… she dropped the crystal orb down the drain and it clinked into the U-bend. "How's that?"

A drowsy affirmative blipped out of the pipe, and the Rakshasa eased into a trance.

So what now?

Marisa was still restless, but her body couldn't keep up. She probably should've suggested something less ambitious than a burglary in unknown territory immediately after being double-sparked. It was stupid decisions like that that turned days off into weeks of recovery. Oh, well. She almost flopped into a stand of moss as soon as she got down into the Mari-Cave, but it felt silly to bivouac right outside her lodge. She trooped in with a tired smile, shedding her outer clothes as she went. _I built a bed. I guess I might as well use it. It'll be nice to rest after all that… oh no._

Shanghai Alice was poised over a card on its little table, clumsily holding a pen in both hands. Marisa picked up the note. The doll had written a small _I'm sorry_ , which it had then scribbled it out, then added _If you still want_ and scribbled it out, and then added _I wish I could expl_ and scribbled that out, too. Finally, Alice had settled on _I hope I see you soon._ Well, Marisa couldn't blame her for choking on an apology. She wasn't sure Alice was the one who needed to apologize, anyway.

"What's _happening_ to you?" she asked the doll's distant master. And just whywas she getting so wound up about this? It wasn't rightly any of her business. Alice wasn't a mark, but this was exactly the kind of situation she'd always been trained to avoid – Mima would definitely have seen her concern as a weakness to be beaten out of her. Turned inward, frightened and angry, she never would have been able to sustain it. But then, she wasn't in that wasteland anymore.

Marisa made a resolution as she curled up in bed, half out of sympathy for her friend and half out of spite for her teacher: when she next saw Alice, she would do her best to be kind.

 _It's like the Spark's channels. As I get stronger, I get more vulnerable, too. But I'm still stronger, so I can take the hits._ Marisa hugged the doll to her chest. _Or something. I don't know. I guess I'm still woozy. This'll probably all seem dumb in the morning._

It didn't take long for her to slip off. Maybe she owed it to Reimu planting the idea in her head, but she dreamed of Makai. She vividly felt its miasma coiling over her skin, and the cool tingle of the filter spell on her face, and the distant, gentle warmth of a nightmare blaze she'd never faced.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note -_** _And that's the end for now! Thanks for sticking with me. And also, t_ _hanks to Section 8, Bocaj and Sieg for beta-reading and support._

 _Parts of this were hard to write, even softened a bit from the earlier drafts and leavened with gonzo fantasy elements. I may be punching above my weight-class. But the idea of a Marisa who's been battered down and yet still manages to be, well, Marisa, has stuck with me for a long time. The briefly-sketched arc between Mari-then and Mari-now is a sort of tribute to... well, you know who you are. I hope you like your witch!  
_

 _Touhou's odd in that most of the characters are just who they are - most of their development happened in the past, and the stories we join them for aren't going to change them much now. I'd wanted to capture that, but since I can't unleash Satori on the whole cast, I'll have to find new ways to approach these characters in the future.  
_

 _See you next time._


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